Hi, I'm trying to find any marketing communication material of Tesla before the official launch. In particular how the first paying customers were recruited. I understand that these were recruited well BEFORE the vehicle was ready. I'm looking for whatever material, photos, videos, text, everything! Anybody can help me? thanks Leonardo
Let's start with what you already have. I assume you have all the youtube videos (which would also tell you about a few major parties and other events). Have you explored the forum and gotten info on the the Get Amped tour? Let us know what you already have & perhaps others will be willing to fill in the blanks.
Are you asking about the most recent customers who've paid and gotten their cars, or the pre-March 2009 marketing when deposits were first accepted, or the pre-Roadster advertising. I think you should be able to google most of what you're looking for...start with Tesla and 2009 or Tesla and 2006 or whatever and see what hits.
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hi efusco, yes I'm talking about the pre-March 2009 marketing when deposits were first accepted. - - - Updated - - - hi Doug, no it's not I'm into marketing innovation. I'm looking for real cases of innovative techniques (like selling a car that doesn't exist yet - - - Updated - - - Thanks TEG! - - - Updated - - - bonnie, I'm preparing it, anyway I can get anything that can be found on the web (duh!) What I'm looking for is what is not out there, or at least not explicitly quoted as such. I'm looking e.g. for the text and images used in the pre-March 2009 period. Was it adWords or direct emails or what? I also read somewhere that a mockup was made with a Lotus body with a fake motor and batteries inside, is it true? is there any picture of this? was it used for marketing or selling purpose? Watch out, I'm an engineer, so I'm aware that these are customary practices in developing the technical part. What I'm after is if and how these were used for marketing/sales. similar question about marketing use of images of a modified Lotus before the actual Tesla was ready. - - - Updated - - - Thank you all!!!
My understanding is that Tesla was using nothing more then a coverage in automotive press. So they worked with journalists, plus Martin and Musk occasionally gave an interviews. With Musk being somewhat popular/well known because of all the activity SpaceX was doing also were mentioning Tesla often. That helped with brand awareness. That strategy was so effective, that Tesla got invitation to participate in one auto show for free. Organizers were thinking it would help show to attract more visitors. As for selling points, electric sport car, which is totally new tech plus good 0-60 performance is all that was needed... Brand awareness lead to actual reservations when time have came... When they were developing/testing drivetrain, they were using mules based on Lotus platform. Which make perfect sense. But fake motor - say what??? Sure they have created clay mockups, to check esthetics etc. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. But you could not say that they created fake cars because of existence of clay mockups... Fake motors make no sense at all. Or may you are referring to testing prototype mockups of parts for fit before starting to actually shape metal? That could have happened.
From what I recall, Tesla was basically in "stealth mode" up until they brought out EP1 & EP2 (first two engineering prototypes) to the exclusive Santa Monica airport reveal and event to give test rides and solicit deposits. Someone sent out invites to a bunch of "movers and shakers" in the Hollywood area who had some interest in green technologies, and seemed like good customer candidates. The Governor showed up and some press followed, and from that point "the ball was rolling". From what I could tell most of the interest came from word-of-mouth, and from some limited public events with limited press taking interest (at first). They would show off newer prototypes at concourse-de-elegance events, bring Roadsters to some charity events, and occasionally host events to let depositors test drive the evolving prototypes. Basically they got enough up front deposits to show that the venture was worthwhile, and then put focus on getting the product finished and delivered, and didn't need to spend a whole lot of time trying to attract additional sales. The Roadster was such limited production vehicle that there wasn't really a need to do a lot of mass market media blitzing. By the way, one of the early Roadster "mules" (based on a Lotus Elise chassis) made a somewhat uncredited "cameo" at the end of the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car": I wouldn't really call that advertising, but it got some watching the EV industry closely to take notice and say to themselves "Hey! What is that all about?!"
More on "mules" & "bucks": They had clay mock-ups for aerodynamic testing. They didn't run or drive, but were never intended to fool anyone into thinking they could. They had a couple of Lotus Elise based mules that could drive, but had unproven prototype drive-trains, so were being evaluated by engineers mostly, not shown (intentionally) to the public for "dog any pony" shows. The early days of Tesla were much more about engineering than marketing...
Hi all, thank you for the posts. A few answers here and there. - I am very interested in techniques to test the market before having a product ready and I am looking for examples of this kind. - I never implied that Tesla was creating "fake" cars to fool customers!!! quite the opposite! but I imagine that they could have had a doubt about how customers would perceive seeing an electric motor in place of an internal combustion engine. i.e.asking themselves "How motor size is relevant for a potential customer?" For the readers of this site it's obviously not an issue, but for someone who has never seen an electric motor in a car it COULD look small, and I would like to verify that this is not a show stopper much before I develop the vehicle! - TEG, I tried to find the thread of yours mentioned by bonnie1194, but didn't succeed. Is ti still out there?
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