Tesla increased its advertising expenditure by 37 times in 2023 compared to the previous year, as revealed in a joint analysis by MediaRadar and its newly acquired firm Vivvix.
The data, focusing on the period from January 1, 2023, to February 29, 2024, highlights Tesla’s significant investment in advertising across various channels, including digital and traditional media.
Tesla’s aggressive advertising strategy saw the company spending nearly $6.5 million in 2023, a substantial leap from the less than $175,000 spent in 2022. This surge in spending marks a strategic shift for Tesla, which has traditionally relied on word-of-mouth.
The analysis by Vivvix, now a part of MediaRadar following the acquisition from Kantar’s North American Advertising Intelligence unit in November 2023, covered ad spends across a broad spectrum.
This included national TV broadcasts, print publications, online channels like websites, OTT channels, podcasts, social platforms, and YouTube, with a special focus on paid Tesla ads spotted on platforms such as Facebook, explained MediaRadar in an email to Tesla North.
January 2024 alone witnessed an 83-fold increase in Tesla’s ad spend compared to the same month last year, with nearly $420,000 invested. This compares to approximately $5,000 spent in January of the previous year.
In the broader automotive industry context, automakers’ overall ad spend in 2023 surpassed $6.4 billion, marking an 8% increase from the nearly $6 billion expended in 2022. It’s clear Tesla advertising is unconventional and usually through price cuts on cars as well, along with other incentives.
We recently saw how Tesla ads are showing up on Facebook, Instagram and even Cars.com. It’s clear Tesla is advertising today more than it was last year. But it still does not pour billions into traditional media advertising like legacy automakers, as money is better spent on making its products better.
The methodology for this analysis involved sampling ad spends from national television, print, and digital advertising, focusing solely on the U.S. market from January 1, 2023, to February 29, 2024, says MediaRadar.