"All Work and All Play"
Settling in for the two minutes of brand video that Tesla has prepared for us, one would be forgiven for thinking that they’d inadvertently stumbled across some sleek B-Roll prefacing a live performance by legendary country singer Willie Nelson. Intercut with single camera shots from the April 2022 opening of a new billion dollar Giga Factory in Texas, Tesla employees and visitors try their hand at lasso practice, fawn over the residents of a sleepy petting zoo, and square dance in skates. Stetsons abound.
Before long day gives way to evening, and thanks to some energizing lighting set ups we find ourselves in the throws of what feels like a Parisian Cabaret or grassroots festival. Shot both on the ground and air, a flurry of live music, dance, and automated vehicle production take over. With nearly 800k views and 30k reactions on LinkedIn alone, there’s much to marvel at here – the calling card of almost all Tesla pieces.
However, it’s when CEO and MC Elon Musk takes to the stage that the business end of Tesla’s brand message emerges: Telsa is finally scaling up. Previous issues with planning permission, breaking ground, and chip shortages seem to be all but in the past, and at over a Kilometre long Giga Texas is “the machine that builds the machine. The factory is the product”.
As vehicles are continuously assembled by fastidious robotic arms alongside the concert and festivities, watching audiences, investors, and aspiring workforces, might feel that Giga Texas isn’t only an invigorating place to work, but that this kind of innovation doesn’t really feel like work at all. That play can coexist with a product that perpetually rolls off the line. An idea that intelligently draws parallels with Tesla’s position on climate change and the automotive industry’s budding symbiosis.
It’s in this space of challenging conceptions and layered messaging that Tesla consistently excels in its use of brand video. It’s also yet another sign that Tesla will soon be firing on all fuel cells.
