StealthP3D
Well-Known Member
After reading recent discussions regarding Tesla and PR departments, and after reading a lot of Gary Black (someone who I often find myself agreeing with these days), I think that he has a fair point that Tesla has NO PROBLEM with short term demand, but long term demand could take a hit through lack of PR.
Its REALLY hard to change 'common knowledge' about a brand. For example, I have no idea of skoda cars are well made, or reliable, or safe, but historically, I know they had a reputation for being laughable, cheap, fragile rubbish. They could spend billions trying to change my mind, but that first impression is real deep.
- Apple products are overpriced
- Chinese made goods are cheap and fall apart
- Germans are efficient and made reliable products
- Russian companies cannot be trusted.
- Porsches are fast
- Gucci is stylish
Maybe none of those things are true now? who knows! but these things have been so deep-set in my mind that its hard to change such opinions. Mostly these are opinions formed by PR and marketing. I've never even sat in a Porsche, but I know they are sexy and fast. How is this different to never having sat in a Tesla, but knowing they have panel gaps and catch fire?
I think Elon is basically one of those people who is so intelligent, he has reverse dunning-kruger, where he assumes everyone is intelligent, open-minded and analytical like he is. BUT THEY ARE NOT! In fact very few people are.
Advertising works, and PR works. I've never owned a Porsche, or anything by Gucci, but i've been 'primed' by PR and marketing to have opinions on them. Right now, Tesla is letting the rivals throw free punches at them in the media.
I agree that advertising right now would be a ludicrous waste of money, but PR is different. Way cheaper, and potentially more effective. PR to get facts out there for the media, in a hand-dandy format for their stories, and PR to get Teslas in to the hands of the movers and shakers and influencers.
We wouldn't need to care if Tesla stuck at 1 million car/year, but to hit 10 million a year you need to stop the deluge of bullshit about accidents and fires and emerald mine and so on.
There will be a time and a place for PR and it will come from the smallest and leanest PR department (relative to the size and value of the company) that the world has ever seen. Other PR departments will laugh nervously at the small size of Tesla's PR department, relative to Tesla's size and success. Currently, an "official" statement from the company, no matter how carefully worded, would only be used as a spring-board for more attacks. Every factual statement released by Tesla would be twisted and turned to further box Tesla in or to show how they were not adhering to their own plans or ideals. How their claimed past actions somehow diverged from this policy or ideal. Every statement Tesla made would spawn hundreds of new talking points, almost all of them negative and false. It would be completely counter-productive.
People that hate Tesla desperately wish the company would say more things they could twist and turn into negatives. They yearn for a Tesla PR department to play with and keep them busy. Instead, their wild claims and twisted lies and distortions are met with...wait for it....silence. That is a sad sound to these cretins, nothing is worse than being met with official silence, nothing to play off of, to make new headline without appearing silly, nothing to twist and turn into a negative as the company tries to defend itself. Silence!
That is why they say nothing at all and yet some people think the answer is for Tesla to release more official statements. Talk is cheap. Telsa and Elon Musk will continue to do more to fight climate change than any other individual or company in existence. They will not lead by talking, but by doing. This is becoming more and more apparent to those threatened by Musk-inspired disruptions who will continue to try to twist anything said by the company in a negative manner as long as they still think they have a chance of slowing them down. But before his cars become mainstream, before Tesla has a vehicle in every market segment, and before Tesla is no longer limited by the number of batteries but the number of buyers, Tesla will have a PR department.
By then, what Tesla says will be golden, no one will be able to deny Tesla has done more to combat climate change and improve the livability of cities, all while being continually attacked with ridiculous accusations. It will be obvious to all that Tesla was not like other companies who talk but do not act, who open their mouth but do not speak the truth. It will be obvious who is standing on the true high ground and who is hurling unsubstantiated insults from an ugly place. The money behind the attacks will dry up because there will be nothing of value left worth protecting. The whole idea that the reputational damage will be impossible to undo assumes that Tesla is like Ford, GM and VW. But it will be obvious they are not like them at all. By the time Tesla has a PR department, it will be less to protect their reputation and more of a public service.
Elon knows that, in a world filled with disinformation, people will naturally learn to look at what you do, not what you say. The early indications of this transformation are already in place. People no longer trust the things politicians, the media or large corporations tell them. They know if their lips are moving, it must be a lie. Or, at the very least, a coloring of the truth, and this is not getting better, it's getting worse. Tesla is not playing that game.
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