What if Tesla started advertising?

On the most recent (3Q 2014) earnings call, when asked about demand, CEO Elon Musk responded, "We have more demand than we can really address and there is a lot of things, levers we could pull to increase that demand which we're not pulling." One of those levers is advertising. Elon explains that demand remains high, "... with no advertising, no sponsorships." According to Advertising Age, "Tesla Motors has no advertising, no ad agency... and that's no problem." That's right, Tesla's ad budget is $0.

In contrast, let's look at what other automotive companies spend on advertising? They often rank as the biggest ad spenders in any industry, here is a sampling -- Fiat-Chrysler: $1.97 billion, Toyota: $2.09 billion, GM: $2.15 billion, and Ford: a whopping $2.56 billion. And yet, with no advertising, Tesla, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, tops the list of all brands with cultural traction beating other automakers and ranking ahead of consumer darlings like Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola.

Obviously, Tesla's strategy is working. But, that hasn't stopped a number of Tesla owners and fans from creating their own ads. So we decided to scour the web for some examples and found quite a few. We've compiled our favorites here. Enjoy...

Billboards

Print Ads

Note: if you're interested in seeing/learning more about these ads created by Tesla fans, check out our Pinterest board.

TV Commercials

Posted in Model S, Tesla, Tesla Fan Ads