Elon Musk launches a new electric vehicle and someone in the glazing department is about to be sacked… Or are they? Yet again, the clever Mr Musk finds a way to capture the imagination and proves he has the world’s press in the palm of his hand.
Imagine the scene, you call together the worlds press to launch a new vehicle, a new electric truck which comes with ‘unbreakable’ Tesla Armor Glass. Naturally, to demonstrate this you throw a steel ball at the windows to prove that it will harmlessly bounce off.
However, of course, disaster strikes, the window shatters… The gasp in the room followed by the painful silence. Elon Musk states “Well, maybe that was a little too hard,” so they try again with a soft throw and again, the window smashes.
Immediately the worlds press collectively rubs their hands and the stories hit the wires. ‘Musk Disaster!’, ‘Elon’s Smashing Time’ the headlines write themselves and soon there are 28,625,347 links on the Internet, Elon’s personal fortune plunges by $768 million and everyone who quietly doesn’t like a winner has a chuckle in their hands.
And then, something surprising happens… Less than twenty four hours later, Elon is back on Twitter saying there are 146,000 orders with, in his words ‘…no advertising & no paid endorsement’. Yeah, just a couple of panes of glass…
You see, despite the physics of why the window failed:
This is an equation from Wired showing exactly why the glass shattered. However, let me say one thing, in my opinion (don’t want to get sued here) it was always supposed to!
You have to admit, Elon Musk is both a genius and a bit of a magician when it comes to promotion. Let’s presume that the promotion of his new electric truck had gone perfectly ‘to plan’ there would have been some trade coverage, perhaps some mainstream but not a major news story.
However, we all love a disaster, as it has all ‘gone wrong’ now this will be shown on every news story and trending world-wide and, by the way, there is this exciting new product!
So, I am not going to talk about this amazing new electric truck, the job has been done. I am just going to applaud Elon Musk and his team. I think I have seen through your ploy (the Tesla press office would not be drawn on the subject…) no paid advertising yet the world’s press is talking about your product. Bravo sir!
And, if Franz is available, the English cricket team could really do with a bowler with your sort of force. Just saying!…