Tesla, Inc

Proposed Communication Plan

Peyton Burger
Austin Cuevas
James Lauritano
Danielle Orozco
Andrew Pavelich
Ashley Sutherland
 Table of Contents
Item Page

Executive Summary 2

Introduction 3

Situation 3

Background & Analysis 3

Key Issue 3
Stakeholders 4
Community 4
Customers 4
Employees 6

Recommendations 7
Social Media 7
Showroom 7
Package Bundles 7

Response 8
Next Steps 8
Projected Budget 10
ROI 10
Timeline 11

Conclusion 11

References 12

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Executive Summary
Per your request, we have consolidated our intern teams communication plan into a brief
summary in order to give you a general overview of our plan and allow for easy skimming. This
summary will briefly discuss our companys key communication issue, our three main
stakeholder groups, and our recommendations and responses regarding this communication
issue.

Teslas main issue is transitioning from an luxury automobile company to a sustainable energy
brand, and to do this we must address the problem and change our current communication
tactics. This issue affects our top three stakeholders: community, customers, and employees. The
community is invested in the environment, and becoming a more prominent sustainable energy
company would positively impact their environmental efforts. In order to help customers
acclimate to this transition, customer satisfaction must be improved by providing additional
services and products. Similarly, employees are not satisfied with work conditions which reflects
poorly upon the company as well as deters qualified individuals from working at Tesla.

Our team recommends expanding advertising through social media, showrooms and package
bundles to increase promotion of new sustainable energy products to new and existing
customers. Our current company image does not accurately represent Tesla as a sustainable
energy company. Social media is a huge influencer, and we recommend hiring employees to
monitor and improve Teslas various social media platforms. Social media marketing is an
inexpensive and direct way to promote Teslas different products.

Shifting to a sustainable energy empire will be possible by revamping the showrooms to

accommodate more sustainable energy products along with the different vehicle models
currently showcased. Devices such as the powerwall and solar roofing will be a great addition
because customers will become more familiar with all the products Tesla has to offer. Lastly, the
incorporation of a product specialist in showrooms will spark consumer interests and continue to
push us in the right direction.

Offering discounts on sustainable energy products when a customer purchases a vehicle, or vice
versa, also known as bundling, will promote our new products while improving future sales. The
promotion of different commodities will allow customers to obtain products that they might not
have otherwise purchased.

To correctly align with the Tesla brand as a sustainable energy company, we propose hiring three
new product specialists as well as a social media manager, which will require a substantial
budget. The companys ROI will be measured by the percentage of consumer perception shift,
rather than a specific monetary value, since the overall goal is to change the publics perception

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of our brand from being a luxury automobile company to being perceived as a sustainable energy
company instead.

Introduction
Per your request, we have identified our companys key communication issue and identified
several potential solutions for this issue. The following document will give you a deeper
understanding of how this issue impacts our three primary stakeholder groups and how our three
solution options would be beneficial to our company. The following paragraphs will discuss the
situation, some background and analysis, recommendations, our response, and a brief conclusion.

Situation
Over the years, Tesla has evolved as a company, and our goals and intentions have shifted from
operating strictly as an luxury automobile company , to becoming more of a sustainable energy
company instead. Currently, however, Tesla is still being perceived by our consumers as an
unaffordable, luxury automobile company , and many believe that our company will not survive
much longer because of this. That said, our goal is to shift the publics perception of our
company from being an unaffordable automotive company to a sustainable energy company
instead.

Background & Analysis

Key Issue
In our previous presentation, we discussed how Teslas internal and external narratives do not
align. Our company has evolved greatly over the years, with the introduction of a sustainable
energy component to the business. With this addition, Teslas intentions have shifted from
portraying ourselves strictly as an automotive company, to rather a more inclusive sustainable
energy company instead. Unfortunately for Tesla, most consumers still only view our company
as an unaffordable, luxury car company, rather than the sustainable energy company that us at
Tesla wish to portray to the public. That said, we believe our company needs to be more
aggressive in their efforts towards shifting the publics perception of our company.

As a company, Tesla has taken several relatively minor initiatives towards shifting public
perception and portraying ourselves as a sustainable energy company. In July of 2016, Tesla
modified our mission statement to read Teslas mission is to accelerate the worlds transition to
sustainable energy rather than transport. Additionally, in February of 2017, we changed our
company name from Tesla Motors to Tesla Inc. and shortened our website from
teslamotors.com to just tesla.com in order to account for the energy side of our business as
well. While these are certainly important steps towards shifting public perception, the issue here
is that they are relatively minor changes that, alone, are not enough to achieve our desired
perception shift. Our stakeholders need a major change to be able to change their current view of
Tesla.

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Stakeholders
Community
While assessing this company issue of being viewed as a luxury car company, rather than a
sustainable energy company, it is important to understand how this affects each of our
stakeholders. The stakeholder group of most importance to us is the community.

The main interest of the community is preserving our natural environment. We as a company
focus all of our efforts towards sustainability. We are doing everything possible to accelerate the
worlds transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy. On top of creating fully electric
vehicles, we focus funds towards other sustainability projects. These projects include solar
roofs/panels and power walls for homes.

They are an important stakeholder group because the communitys interest in preserving the
environment is in line with our mission as a company. Our current company image causes a
disconnect because some members of the community dont recognize our other sustainability
efforts and view us as strictly as a luxury automobile company. Being viewed as a sustainable
energy company would increase support from the community and help advance our sustainability
efforts.

The communication channels that we feel should be implemented all help improve the
community. This is because all of these communication approaches to our customers help spread
positive word of mouth regarding our sustainability efforts. With the communitys focus being
on preserving our environment, any step we take towards advancing our sustainable efforts also
helps the community.

Customers
Tesla customers are currently interested in buying high quality products at a reasonable price.
Customers greatly affect our company's image and how people perceive our company, therefore,
it is imperative that we meet their needs and wants. As Tesla shifts into being viewed as a
sustainable energy company, we must ensure that our customers are satisfied with the transition.
In addition, we should focus on reaching a larger market of customers as we change from a
luxury automobile company to a sustainable energy company.

In order to help transition customers into viewing Tesla as a sustainable energy company, we are
making efforts to provide additional services and products to improve customer satisfaction. For
example, we are now manufacturing batteries in house to lower costs which makes the products
more affordable for our customers. In addition, we are expanding our car charging station
network. As we improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, customer perception of our company
will be more easily transitioned.

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Complaints and suggestions being made by customers are currently focused primarily towards
the quality of cars rather than the other products offered by Tesla. A CNBC article elaborates on
customer Tweets that Elon Musk responded to on Twitter. Some examples of suggestions
provided by customers were to change the seating configurations and to add an option to save
driver headrest options. A customer complaint referred to the long wait time at charging stations.
Given that customers are mainly concerned with Tesla cars, it is clear that there is a disconnect
between customer perception and the transition of Tesla expanding to a sustainable energy
company.

As we see that customers are voicing their opinions through Twitter, it would be beneficial for us
to use social media as a channel to advertise our new products. Social media advertisement will
allow us to connect directly to our customers and give them the opportunity to provide feedback.
This engagement will promote the new perception of our company. In addition, we can promote
our new products by placing them in our showrooms for our customers to easily view. Currently,
we only display cars at our showroom locations. This counteracts with our efforts to transition
ourselves away from a luxury automobile company to a sustainable energy company. Lastly, we
can use package bundles to advertise our sustainable energy products. This will give customers
incentives to purchase new products and ultimately gain a new perception of Tesla.

As seen in the figure above, now is the best time to step up our communication efforts towards
customers in our target market because the market for expensive sustainable energy products is

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increasing every year. This increase in demand for our products will mean that more employees
will be needed to create them.

Employees
Our Employees are important asset within our company since they are the individuals who create
our products that we want to provide to the public. We find that it is important to focus on our
employees because how they are feeling about the company directly affects how our projected
target market view us.

Tesla's employees are currently very unsatisfied with the working conditions and transparency
within the entire company. With the employees unsatisfied it is causing less products to be
produced which in turn is leading to low overall growth especially in areas of new less popular
products. Our employees wrote a letter to our president Elon Musk stating these key concerns in
April of this year.

Employees havent noticed any major changes within these concerning areas which is causing
them to feel as if they are unsupported by the company translating to them not wanting to
support our constant growth that we are striving to achieve. These behaviors from our employees
are leading to them creating protests against the company producing us to have a bad name. The
safety concerns that have been an issue since 2015 are also not being resolved to the extent that
they need to be.

The OSHA 300 form that was requested earlier in the year from our employees revealed
frightening details. Our employees figured out that according to the document it is more
dangerous to work for Tesla as a factory-line worker than working at a slaughterhouse or saw
mill. This data is according to the DART (days away from work) and TRC (total recorded cases)
analyses that they received. These issues happening within our warehouses are causing employee
morale to drop to scary low levels and causing many delays in productions since not enough
workers are producing our products. This in addition isnt making incoming employees want to
join our team.

We decided to focus on our customers verse employees within our recommendation for our issue
because our customers are the group that can make biggest impact fast. In addition, we are
assuming that with the increase in our customers satisfaction and increase in the use of our
sustainable products than employees will be happier with the products they are providing since
they are making a bigger change in the world. We have created three recommendations for our
issue that we find will make the needed changes.

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Recommendations
In order to bring awareness to the multiple products that are offered by Tesla it would be
beneficial to the company to promote and advertise these products heavily to both new and
existing customers. As a team we have compiled multiple recommendation for the company to
enable us to be considered a sustainable energy company, rather than just an automobile
manufacturer. These recommendations include an expanded social media presence, utilizing the
auto show rooms to showcase products such as the power wall and solar panels, and package
bundle options for those purchasing our products.

Social Media
Currently Tesla is not spending any money on advertising the products that we offer. Our plan is
to make changes to how and which products we would like to market to our consumers.
Currently our largest social media platform is Twitter, with 59.2% of our total following. Using
this platform will allow us to market these products to over 550,000 users on Twitter alone. We
also plan to create more social media platforms that can reach out to more users than just current
Twitter followers. Shifting our social medias content to emphasize on our other products will
not only drive the sales for those products, but also allow the perception of our company to shift.
We will use our social media platforms to illustrate the different products we offer and allow our
following to shift their perspective of Tesla from a luxury automobile company to a sustainable
energy empire.

Showroom
Currently our showrooms are only offering our automobile models. In order to sell more
powerwalls and solar panels we believe offering these products and a product specialist to the
showrooms will spark the customers interest in our other products we offer and also aid in our
goal of shifting to a sustainable energy company. Using the showrooms to educate our customers
on the different ways they can impact the environment through the use of our products will not
only allow our company to aid in the shift to 100% renewable energy, but also allow the public
perception of our company to shift as well.

Package Bundles
To capitalize on our current automobile sales, we believe that offering discounts and incentives
on several of our new energy products with the purchase of a Tesla vehicle will result in
increased consumer awareness and interest in our new energy products. By offering a bundle
discount - for example, 15% off solar roof installation with the purchase of a Tesla vehicle - we
believe consumers will be more likely to consider these energy products, which will ultimately
lead to increased public awareness and, ideally, shift towards sustainable energy in our public's
perception.

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The following chart shows the initial cost of three solar roofing options after a 30% federal tax
credit. As you can see, Teslas solar roof is still relatively expensive in comparison to some of
its competitors. That said, we believe that offering a discount bundle will give consumers an
incentive to consider trying a Tesla solar roof rather than a substitute option.

Shifting the public's perception of our company will not be an easy obstacle to overcome. Tesla
has been linked to the luxury automobile industry, leaving many to overlook our company in
regards to our other products which promote the use of sustainable energy. As a team we believe
the best way for Tesla to emerge as a sustainable energy empire is to implement the changes
above, and make it known that we are much more than a luxury automobile company. These
changes will require strategic planning and specific steps, but as a team we feel it will ultimately
have a high return on investment for the company as a whole.

Response
Next Steps
A misalignment between our desired and actual company image is currently hurting the
companys sustainability efforts. In order to be widely viewed as a sustainable energy company
we need to change how our stakeholders view us. Shifting the way our stakeholders view Tesla
as a company can be achieved by better utilizing our social media, showrooms, and offering
promotional incentives to our customers.

Social Media
We feel it would be beneficial to hire another employee or group of employees to control our
social media. The number of social media users has risen from 970,000,000 in 2010 to
2,460,000,000 in 2017. This number is projected to increase to over 3 billion by 2021. This is
shown in figure 1 below.

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Figure 1:

As social media traffic continues to increase, social media marketing has become a cheap and
efficient way to reach a large number of important potential customers.

Social media marketing has many benefits that can help our company. In a survey, when asked
What are the benefits of using social media for marketing purposes, 88% of respondents
answered it increased exposure, 78% said it increased traffic, and 66% said it provided
marketplace insight. Increasing exposure and providing marketing insight are important to
changing how the community and customers view our company. Increasing traffic would also
bring more potential customers into our showrooms.

Showrooms
We have decided that it is also important to focus efforts towards improving our showrooms.
This is a big changing factor for us because it is what our target markets are directly seeing and
has the biggest potential for impact.

We need to add more of our new sustainable products versus our already popular automobiles to
the showrooms to make it possible for us to showcase these products better. Doing this will
create increased knowledge to our peers about what other services we are offering. We are
planning to add specialized experts to each of our showrooms that are going to draw people into
the new products. We plan to educate our specialized expects on the products allowing them to
be able to best present them best to the public. The average pay for a product specialist is $15.19
an hour and this will add up to approximately $32,000 to our budget. With this added expensive
we still believe that it will benefit our company goal in expanding to more than a luxury car
company and in the end change our current image.

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Package Bundles
In efforts to promote our new products, we plan to offer package bundles that provide discounts
on certain products. For example, we will offer a 15% discount on either solar roofing, a
powerwall, or a home charging station if a customer purchases a new Tesla car. Conversely, we
will offer a discount on a new Tesla car if a customer purchases either of those products. While
customers normally visit our showrooms to purchase vehicles, this will allow them to expand
their knowledge on new products Tesla offers. This will ultimately change their perception of
our company from strictly automobiles to sustainable energy. Additionally, they will adapt to the
new perception of our company and will share their experiences with various new Tesla products
to their network of friends and family. This will create for an increased positive word of mouth
with a low cost addition to our budget.

Projected Budget
To increase our social media presence, we will need to hire a social media manager. The average
salary for a person with that position is $51,500 annually. We suggest hiring one social media
manager and keep costs at $51,500 per year for social media marketing.

For the showroom recommendation, we suggest a trial in a few showrooms before implementing
this nationwide. Three new product specialist would be hired to work in three separate
showrooms and spread awareness about our other products. Currently, Tesla pays product
specialists around $35,000 per year. So the three new hires would cost around $105,000 per year.

ROI
Although a companys return on investment is typically thought to be measured as a monetary
value, there are often alternative ways that the ROI can be evaluated instead. In our case, we plan
to strengthen our companys social media presence by portraying more items from the energy
side of our business, as well as our cars. Given that Tesla has nearly three million followers on
Instagram and nearly two million Twitter followers, we believe that strengthening our social
media presence will greatly increase our consumers awareness of our non-automotive products,
which will help assist in the public perception shift that we are aiming for.

Additionally, we plan to expand the displays in our showrooms to include samples from the new
energy side of our business, including the powerwall, home charging station, solar roofing, and
solar panels. This will not only help increase awareness of our available products, but will also
allow us to offer bundle options to customers who purchase a vehicle from us. For example, if a
customer were to purchase a vehicle from one of our showrooms, we could then offer a 15%
discount on solar roof installation.

Our goal by implementing these strategies is to shift the publics perception of our company
from just being an unaffordable luxury car company, to being viewed as a sustainable energy
company instead. That said, our companys ROI will be evaluated based on a percentage change

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in the publics perception shift of our company, rather than a monetary value. For this to be
possible we need to create a strict timeline of the important dates that we need to implement
phases of our plan.

Timeline

Conclusion
Tesla currently has misalignment with branding, we are viewed as a luxury automobile company
instead of a sustainable energy company. In order to effectively reach our target markets and
change the publics perception we are going to use a variety of social media platforms to
communicate and advertise. Another way that we are going to reach the customers would be
through newly improved showrooms. Our showrooms cannot rely solely on cars, we need to
showcase the new sustainable energy products as well and make the community aware of our
sustainability efforts.

Another way we can promote other new sustainable energy products would be through a
bundle package. An example of a bundle would be, if a customer buys a Tesla vehicle we will
offer a discount on our other products such as solar roofing and vice versa. This will continue to
strengthen our sales while increasing our brand loyalty. Most importantly the bundle will help us
change the public's perception, and push our brand towards a sustainable energy company that
we are striving to achieve. As an intern team we believe that with the implementation of these
recommendations Tesla will be able to reach their goal of becoming a sustainable energy
company in the eyes of the public.

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 References

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