What I believe

In its most basic form, communication informs and educates. 

At its very best it spurs action, inspires loyalty, and evokes emotion.    

I believe the job of a communicator is to do all of the above – through storytelling, thought leadership and engagement. I believe the job of a communicator is to listen. Hear the audience. Understand their needs. And deliver stories that stick.

My communications career has been built on these foundational beliefs. Including, yes, the crazy idea that communication can in fact, spur action, inspire loyalty, evoke emotion and above all, change the world.

What I do

PR ACTIVATIONS

Led Deere’s earned media and social strategy to launch a brand collaboration with Busch Light. Combined efforts with the Busch Light Social Media and PR teams resulted in double the media reach, mentions and social media engagements in one week over the life of any previous limited edition cans by Anheuser-Busch.

Executed an earned media strategy to raise money for Farm Rescue via The Farm Must Go On, a live YouTube concert. This resulted in 173 media placements, 923 million earned media impressions, and a 9% increase in brand favorability.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

Within two weeks of becoming the PR Director for John Deere, I developed and led our public response to COVID-19 including a robust PR & Social Media strategy in partnership with Brand to celebrate our employees and customers – those who keep the world running. Efforts resulted in an 8% increase in brand favorability at a time we saw other manufacturers’ brand perception scores decline.

I also responded to more than 300 media inquiries during the early days of the pandemic while also driving positive media coverage — i.e. Deere’s production of face shields for healthcare workers and led a community of practice for Deere PR practitioners globally.

CHANNEL STRATEGY

In my current role, I am responsible for developing and executing a channel strategy for all owned media including the corporate sections of Deere.com, Deere’s social media, our employee intranet site, and launched the John Deere newsroom.

SOCIAL STRATEGY

I reinvented our social media presence and lead the content and channel strategy for John Deere’s social presence in 54 countries. Learn more here.

Efforts to transform our brand presence on Twitter have more than quadrupled engagements on the channel.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Within two weeks in the role, I expanded our social media coverage from business hours only to 24 / 7 / 365. This effort cut the average response time to customer support issues by more than 100 percent.

EVENT EXECUTION

I led social event brand executions for the John Deere Classic, our presence at CES and for sponsorships with organizations such as the FFA. Event executions consistently showed an increase in brand affinity including a 12% favorability increase in how the tech industry perceived John Deere following CES.

EXECUTIVE SOCIAL PRESENCE

In November 2019, I helped lead the executive communications strategy to deploy our first executive social presence on LinkedIn. This includes creating and managing all content, engagements and articles by our CEO and onboarding employee brand ambassadors across the company.

Jen is currently the Global Director of Strategic Public Relations and Enterprise Social Media at John Deere.