Be Electric Daily
If it isn’t obvious by now, electric vehicles aren’t a joke anymore and they are going to take over the transportation/mobility industry. Almost every major car brand is coming out with an electric car or a line of up electric cars in the next 2 - 5 years along with plenty of startups launching prototypes in between. What will this mean for the advertising industry?
The clear leader right now in the EV space is Tesla and should remain Tesla for awhile (watch out for Rivian though), but what makes Tesla so attractive as a brand? Of course you have the inspirational character of Elon Musk behind the wheel, but you also have a line of products that were built from the ground up as computers that function more like smartphones. This future-proof functionality has led to growth in value over time and many new features post-purchase for owners. The unique experience has led to owners becoming “micro-influencers” and boy do they love talking about their Teslas with their small group of friends and family. This has given Tesla one of the strongest word of mouth channels of any product on the market, but this isn’t the underlying reason why Tesla is leading.
Tesla is leading because their “why” resonates much more with the world that we all want to live in and the world that we have been promised for the last few decades by movies and pop culture. Their mission statement isn’t, “Make amazing electric vehicles with amazing technology” it is, “Accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” and how could you not get behind that? There is power in purpose and the challenge for brands that didn’t start off with a mission statement like Tesla's have been facing and will face is how to stand up for something while remaining genuine.
This year’s Superbowl featured a record of 3 commercials about electric vehicles. These brands are lucky to be launching an EV in a post Tesla vehicle launch world as they do not have as many messaging barriers to entry. All they have to do capitalize on the good-will that Tesla has already created toward EVs in the general public.
GMC Hummer EV | Quiet Revolution
This :30 second spot came from a place of what and how rather than a place of why. Of course, it is amazing to see what was once the most gas guzzling, polluting, mpg-anxiety inducing vehicle become electric, but what I think this commercial is missing is the sense of community. Since this commercial was more of an announcement about an announcement, we will have to wait to see what messaging will be used during the official vehicle unveil in May 2020. Driving a vehicle is a lonely task, but revolutions don’t happen alone.
Porsche | The Heist
This spot featured the upcoming all electric Porsche Taycan and unlike Hummer, we did get the sense of car culture and community that has been so important to building Porsche’s brand. This spot says, “Hey we are coming out with an electric vehicle, but don’t forget we also have all these gas powered vehicles too so we aren’t abandoning ‘you’ just yet.” I think we are going to see a lot of transitional messaging like this before we see any company go all in on electric messaging.
Audi | Let it Go
The first production Audi E-Trons were delivered in mass in May 2019, but overall have experienced shaky month-to-month sales and growth due in part to the underwhelming spec comparison to comparable Tesla models. This commercial did stand up and say, “Together we can fight climate change, you just have to let go of your old habits and routines”. If you want to win over the first time buyers, I believe you will need to take a stand. More and more people are getting ready to make the switch from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric all they need are options. So let’s applaud Audi’s bold tagline, “Let’s drive to a more sustainable future” as it aligns with where the world is headed.
After 4 years of intensely studying, listening to and being part of the growing Tesla and general EV communities here are a few key concerns that are often raised by people who are considering switching to an EV. Each should be considered in future advertising copy and creative.
Real World Durability
Are electric vehicles as durable as my current ICE vehicle? In 2015, Tesla only had a “handful” of Model S and Roadsters on the road, backed by lab-tested claims that the vehicle could outlast current ICE vehicles. It wasn’t until Tesloop, the SoCal Tesla based shuttle company, routinely put 15,000 - 17,000 miles a month on their Tesla did people really start to quiet down. Tesloop’s 8 vehicles have all travelled between 300,000 - 450,000 miles each in a life span of 3 years.
Maintenance Cost
Another unknown for buyers is what maintenance will truly cost over the lifespan of the vehicle. This is still a key concern and videos on this topic easily get hundreds of thousands of views. Overall, the trend is that EVs cost less per mile than traditional vehicles. For Tesloop, maintenance per mile is around $0.06 compared to $0.22 on comparable ICE vehicles. Another argument often brought by those who are pro-electric is the fact that EVs have less moving parts which means less parts have the potential to break. Even brake pads last much longer on EVs as regenerative braking technology has advanced plenty in the last 5 years.
Range Anxiety/Charging Locations
This is a major concern for those without consistent overnight access to chargers, such as those that live in apartments. Without chargers as ubiquitous as gasoline stations, current OEMs will need to come up with a solution here and advertisers will need to figure out how to calm this anxiety. Many OEMs have partnered with startups like ChargePoint to compete with Tesla’s 10,000+ Supercharging network. Even with that many chargers, Tesla’s still invoke range anxiety when traveling long distances. That being said you’ll often find owners excitedly posting their supercharging route as they travel around the US.
Charging Times
Currently, the newest Tesla Model 3 can charge to 80% in about 10-15 minutes while the E-tron can do 80% in about 30 minutes. These charge times are based on 100-kW or better fast chargers. Charging times will continue to go down with breakthroughs in battery technology. What hasn’t fully been addressed here are the lines of vehicles waiting to charge at peak times of the day or holiday. Entertainment features in the vehicles to pass the time are helpful while slowly building out charging networks, but this continues to be a negative experience and trade off for owning an EV today.
Types of Chargers
For a newbie, types of chargers may feel chaotic and unorganized as these networks of chargers and infrastructure are still emerging. A level 1 charger is a slow charger that you would most commonly find in homes charging at 5-10 miles an hour. Level 2 chargers are currently the most common public chargers at a rate of 20-30 miles an hour. Level 3 chargers or DC fast chargers give you 80% of your charge in 20-30 minutes.
Battery Degradation
You do not hear about this as an issue right now, but it will be a growing issue for OEMs and owners as thousands of EVs get older. Basically, as you do more and more charge cycles, battery cell efficiency will decrease and your vehicle will lose range. Apple has been hit with several fines due to battery degradation and performance on iPhones so we may see similar cases with EVs in the future. At 250,000 - 300,000 miles you will most likely be at 80 - 85% efficiency, but the key messaging point here is that your vehicle can still run at 300,000 miles with 200 miles of rated range rather than at 250 miles when it was new, while a traditional ICE vehicle would be in the junkyard.
Autonomy
There has been plenty of tension here with Tesla’s more public advancement of self-driving technology. Plenty of driver’s have been caught sleeping behind the wheel even though the technology isn’t ready just yet for you to do this. We will see very intense outrage over the first self proclaimed “self-driving” vehicle as we did with the death of the AUX port on iPhones, but as technology proves itself, it will be business as usual. The argument here is, if you have the technology to make the roads safer for everyone then it would be immoral to keep that technology private. Technology can address the more than 30,000 deaths and 2 million injuries a year still occurring on roads today in the US.
The internet has not only made us more connected (or unconnected depending on how you view the world), it has very quickly made us a data-driven society and this will be key for EV adoption and advertisers. ICE vehicles have long provided very basic data to owners, such as average miles per gallon, but when people start to realize the data that they can derive from EVs it will be a no brainer to switch over. You can already see the obsession with metrics and data in current Tesla forums and groups.
Data as advertising has been an effective way for companies such as Spotify to break through the noise. At the end of the 2019, or more importantly the decade, they showed users who they were by what they listened to. Users then very easily would share that on their stories and proclaim “this is me”. You see similar posts from those in the health and fitness communities that have one or more smart devices tracking their activity. A similar strategy will work for EVs.
For Teslas or any EV built as a computer from the ground up, you can track your driving efficiency second by second, see your battery degradation in real time (without having to go to a service center or technician) and even calculate your vehicle’s true depreciation by the mile. You could also prove your history of safe driving with a data log which you can send to your insurance company to negotiate lower premiums. Each of these data logs could easily be an ad campaign. The connected EV will help create a hybrid of car culture and digital community similar to ones that smartphones and smart devices have created in recent years.
We are now a few years into the EV revolution and EV adoption has already shown the potential for exponential growth. As advertisers we will be faced with the exciting challenge of educating the driving public on the vast differences of EV and ICE ownership/subscription thus “toppling” the years of work we’ve put into ICE vehicles. If you are working on a mission/brand statement, might I suggest simply starting at “Be Electric Daily.”
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