Tag Archives: branding

by | Thursday, April 25, 2024 · 9:46 am

Tesla is Now Spending on Advertising

Times are changing. Habits evolve. Products adapt. And, what worked in the past might not work today.

Here’s an example: Tesla has long avoiding the costs of advertising in any traditional way. Its own CEO, Elon Musk, has stated that he hates advertising. To date, Tesla has depended on its own social media accounts, consumers’ social media, stores, press coverage, and strong word-of-mouth branding. Plus, Elon Musk has access to a very large social media platform/followers and uses it to the company’s advantage.

But, Musk has changed his mind and spent about $6.4 million on digital advertising in the U.S. in 2023. While this is definitely an uptick from spending of only $175,000 in 2022, it pales in comparison to other automotive companies’ spending. For example, General Motors spent $3.6 BILLION on advertising and promotion in 2023.

 So, where is Tesla advertising? Well, it is spending primarily on digital advertising on X (another Elon Musk company), Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Tesla has also bought Google search ads. Current Tesla advertising focuses on family and safety – this repositions the company from a sports car to family car.

And, why is Tesla advertising now? Perhaps it’s because its stock price is down, growth has declined, and competition has increased. Some of its ads even included promotional pricing to lower the cost of buying.

What do you think?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Poll students: How has Tesla historically marketed its vehicles?
  2. Why is Tesla now advertising?
  3. View Tesla YouTube ads: https://youtu.be/L2fticPH-to?si=6Q4zwI6gXHaHryLh  
  4. View Tesla ads on X: https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1770846108098375680?s=20
  5. Poll students: Who has seen an ad for Tesla on any of their social media feeds?
  6. Discuss the Product Life Cycle (PLC) and how advertising is used at each stage.
  7. Have students draw a PLC and place the EV industry. Then have them place other automobile companies.
  8. Given this, have the teams develop a marketing program for Tesla.

Source: Haggin, P. & Coffee. P. (29 March 2024). Tesla dives into advertising after years of resistance. Wall Street Journal; Kafka, P. (5 March 2024). Elon Musk has a unique plan to solve Twitter’s ad problems. Business Insider; Quiroz-Gutierrez, M. (29 March 2024). Tesla scraps Elon Musk’s no-advertising mantra as stock nosedived nearly 30% this year. Fortune.

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by | Tuesday, April 23, 2024 · 7:42 am

Tiger Woods Launches a New Brand – Sun Day Red

Even if you know very little about golf, you can probably recognize professional golfer Tiger Woods wearing his signature red Nike swoosh shirt …. Oops… I forgot, no more Nike shirts for Tiger, he ended that relationship a few months ago after 27 years of sponsorship.

Now, Woods is launching his new brand with TaylorMade Golf. But he still favors the red polo shirt for Sunday rounds. He’s even named his new brand “Sun Day Red” albeit with a tiger embroidered on the shirt instead of a swoosh. The tiger logo is composed of 15 stripes which is the number of championships won by Tiger Woods.

Sun Day Red will be marketed as a premium lifestyle brand for athletes, fans, and non-athletes alike, including apparel, hoodies, shoes, and cashmere sweaters. In essence, the company will be combining golf with fashion and leisure for lifestyle wear. Woods isn’t the only athlete to launch such a lifestyle brand; Roger Federer, Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, and Venus and Serena Williams have also entered the marketplace with their own lifestyle/sports brands.

Products will be available online beginning in May, to be followed by international expansion. While pricey, the items are not extreme – polo shirts from $114 – $175, and cashmere sweaters $250 – $350. While TaylorMade does not yet have golf footwear, it’s reportedly under development.

Shall we get a tee time next Sunday?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss how professional athletes have started their own brands.
  2. Show website: https://www.sundayred.com/
  3. Discuss how to build and use a SWOT analysis grid: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (internal and external factors).
  4. Divide students into teams. Have each team select a professional athlete who also has a brand associated with them. (Include Tiger Woods as one of the athletic brands.)
  5. For each athlete, including Tiger Woods, direct the team to build a SWOT analysis grid.
    1. Strengths: what is the brand good at?
    1. Weaknesses: what needs work?
    1. Opportunities: what is going on in the marketplace?
    1. Threats: what should the brand be wary of?
  6. Based on the analysis, what are the issues and risks that might occur for each brand?
  7. Debrief by building SWOT analysis grid on the white board.

Source: Ferguson, D. (13 February 2024). Tiger Woods unveils Sun Day Red, a new apparel brand with TaylorMade. Associated Press; Hirsch, L. & Friedman, V. (12 February 2024). Tiger Woods introduces his new brand: Sun Day Red. New York Times.

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by | Saturday, April 20, 2024 · 9:41 am

Tide Evolves into New Tile Form

Laundry is big business. How big? Roughly $9.3 billion worth of big annually! Market researcher Circana estimates that of that amount, 70% is spent on liquid detergent, 24% on packets and tablets (e.g. Tide Pods), and powder detergent is only 6%.  Tide Pods were launched in 2012 and quickly reached $500 million in sales within its first year.

That’s a big shift in how consumers select detergents to do their laundry. And Tide (owned by Proctor & Gamble) is introducing yet another form of detergent – dry detergent sheets for your laundry – with hopes to repeat its success with Tide Pods.

Why the new form? The dry laundry sheets appeal to consumers who want to eliminate both plastics and waters that adversely impact our environment. The new technology also eliminates the need for heavy plastic bottles and thereby reduces shipping weight and cost for online purchasers. P&G isn’t the first to use this dry sheet format, but it is the largest laundry detergent brand and hopes to convince consumers to change the way they wash clothes.

What are they? The dry sheets are roughly the size of your palm and are composed of six layers of fibers that dissolve in cold water, reducing energy bills for washing. A package of 44-tiles will retail for $19.94, the same price as a 45-pod container of Tide Power Pods + Ultra Oxi.

Unlike the colorful Tide Pods, which presented problems with children mistaking the pods for candy as well as criticism of water pollution, the dry sheets will be colorless, a form preferred by consumers in the testing phase.

What’s your preferred laundry detergent?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Show website: https://tide.com/en-us/our-commitment/tide-evo
  2. Discuss the importance of clearly defining a target market.
  3. Divide students into teams. For Tide evo, what is the target market? Include demographics, psychographics, behaviors, values, attitudes, etc.
  4. Based on the target market profile, what makes this product unique for these customers?
  5. Discuss newness from the consumers’ perceptive. Is this product an example of continuous innovation, dynamically continuous innovation, or discontinuous innovation? Why?
  6. How does this product fit into P&G product line?
  7. Who is the main competitor to Tide evo?

Source: Khan, N. (3 March 2024). P&G launches Tile Tiles in bid to change how laundry is done. Wall Street Journal; Weiss, G. (8 March 2024). Forget Pods. Tide wants to make fabric ‘tiles’ the future of laundry. Business Insider.

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