Somehow many otherwise intelligent people fail to understand the (r)evolution of marketing communication that has come to be dominant in many amrkets today.
First, 'advertising' as John Wanamaker so famously said "...is half wasted. The problem is that I don't know which half". Even the more carefully targeting produces exceedingly expensive 'cost per reach', with much higher 'cost per sale'.
Second, as various internet solutions have become more and more advanced the cost per reach has become very high regardless of the specific technique being used.
Third, in many geographical markets Tesla seems to be either the highest frequency automotive search or quite close. That suggests quite strongly that awareness is exceedingly high among probable interested customers and investors. Obviously that comment is an inference made with inadequate data to support it directly, but...
Fourth, the actual sales results pretty much everywhere Tesla is available suggest that the existing techniques are quite effective and are also scalable.
Finally poorly informed investors, many owners and lots of TMC enthusiasts all share the idea that broad scale advertising would provide direct benefits, as it would indeed. It would increase cost of sales and have minimal other results because there is zero chance they could spend enough money to yield any material benefits.
Sadly, perhaps, I did my PhD in that silly topic, marketing. Even back in the dark ages when I did it (1973) there was no better technique than carefully cultivated 'Word of Mouth' to achieve excellent results. Tesla reaches many new customers in critically important demographics because of (in)judicious Twitter use and nurtured other social media, all with close to zero marginal cost. As with all such efforts, the very activities themselves alienate some other valuable classes, but most of those tend not to be large consumers of the same media.
If you doubt anything I have said I suggest reflecting on a handful of political campaigns (e.g. Trump, Brexit, The Ukraine Presidential election of Volodymyr Zelensky. All of those were huge surprises because all of them reached potential voters that their opponents and pundits missed. Tesla may the the only major automobile or energy company to actually know what they're doing.
There are many things Tesla should be doing better, especially customer support. They should understand better how to handle delivery and customer support. As for marketing and/or advertising they're pretty close to optimal except for surmounting political and legal opposition from fossils. That, sadly, will not fade for a very long time.
