Tesla has turned to utilizing ‘edgy’ social media advertising amid a model injury disaster brought on by CEO Elon Musk.
Tesla famously didn’t use promoting till it began dabbling in it in 2023—shortly after Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased Twitter, a platform that depends on promoting.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take lengthy for Tesla to start out operating advertisements on Twitter amid an exodus of advertisers on the controversial platform that rebranded to ‘X’.
Regardless of promoting for the primary time, Tesla stays timid on that entrance and nonetheless primarily depends on different advertising methods, like social media content material and phrase of mouth.
Traditionally, Tesla’s social media presence has been fairly tame. The automaker wouldn’t put up a lot apart from essential releases and the occasional advertising materials.
That modified in 2023 after Musk acquired the platform. He launched a brand new account for companies that value $1,000 month-to-month for the primary account after which $50 per thirty days for each different “affiliated account.” Tesla rapidly created 13 completely different affiliated accounts for the platforms.
The quantity has since risen to 37 accounts since our authentic report. Many of those accounts are barely used right now, however a number of have turn out to be fairly energetic.
They’ve ramped up their posts these days as Tesla is experiencing extreme demand issues amid a model disaster. Tesla is below boycotts from left-leaning individuals within the US over the assumption that Musk is utilizing Tesla as his personal private piggy financial institution to finance the rise of fascism within the US.
Throughout that point, Tesla has ramped up its use of social media, primarily X, and it has turned to a rising development amongst manufacturers on social media: making an attempt to be humorous and edgy.
Corporations like Wendy’s, Ryan Air, and others have popularized this advertising technique by responding to social media content material with humorous replies that some might discover offensive.
Tesla is giving it a attempt over the previous couple of days, however it’s falling flat because the sense of humour seems to be to the identical stage as its CEO’s; a stunted 14-year-old’s humor:

Right here Tesla is making enjoyable of the truth that Cybertruck nonetheless doesn’t have the “precise good summon” function, which some are calling ‘ASS’.
After launching a brand new Diamond Black shade final week, Tesla used this meme, which fell flat:

This one is a bit higher. It’s a play of Time’s new entrance web page information about bringing again the dire wolf. Tesla says that it introduced again the flip sign stalk:

Nonetheless, the flip sign stalk was by no means extinct. Each automotive besides Teslas nonetheless has one, and even Tesla’s Mannequin Y nonetheless has it. They simply didn’t take away it with the redesign.
Going actually edgy, Tesla’s Optimus account even posted on grownup content material on X:

Will this new advertising effort repay or will Tesla want extra to counter the model injury?
Electrek’s Take
I feel everyone knows the reply to that query. Look, humor is humor. There are completely different senses of humor on the market, and other people like various things.
Some individuals might like these, however personally, I feel all of them fall flat.
Moreover and extra importantly, Tesla is nearly solely focusing its social media effort on X, which ranks twelfth on this planet for month-to-month customers in social media.
Tesla is simply preaching to the choir there. If it desires to have an actual impression, it must assist Musk’s rivals and go to Instagram, TikTok, and so on.
It’s simply the newest instance of Musk stunting Tesla’s development as a result of his extracurricular actions.