Brands are publishing print magazines. John Deere knows a thing or two about that.

When the outdoor gear company REI launched a print magazine last year, it became one of the latest examples of a marketing trend that runs counter to the current focus on digital. But Midwest manufacturer John Deere has been doing it for 125 years. John Deere publishes The Furrow, a glossy magazine sent free to more than 500,000 customers eight times a year. One marketer called it “the agrarian version of Rolling Stone.”