Nearly all expenditures to shift demand for anything by educational advertising have had negligible effect. During the last decades several studies have been done on that subject, nearly all of the proprietary. A handful have been openly described, mostly ones done by industry groups.
One of the few which had huge recognition was "Got Milk" which was credited for a small upward blip in milk use while continuing the overall drop in milk consumption. The industry loved them so they kept spending the money anyway.
‘Got Milk,’ America’s most memorable ad campaign, was everywhere in the 1990s. But did it get Americans to drink more milk?
www.saveur.com
The Super Bowl campaigns gain huge press, but repeatedly watchers remember the ad and forget the sponsor. That is the perilous reality of successful ads.
The unforgettable Volkswagen US ad was revered widely, but did not sell cars, the following for a small sense of humor:
nowiknow.com
So, no, image ads are nearly always done to satisfy the egos of senior executives. At their best they generate memorable moments, but rarely do anything else with monetary value for anybody other than the advertising industry.
FWIW I, to my chagrin, had a good business in this industry. We, as did nearly everyone, used focus groups to test our products. Bounty, competent focus group facilitators find out the desired answer prior to the group and produce the desired answer virtually always. I say 'virtually' because I'm sure someone, somewhere, failed to do that.
It was a really good focus group that convinced Hewlett Packard there was no future for hand held calculators because slide rules were cheaper, faster and more capable. The focus group was made up of engineers. This one really did happen! Luckily it was just before I landed in the place that did it. Had I been I'd probably have made the mistake. By the time I arrived I already had my Bowmore Brain.
So, seriously, Tesla would only have a rise in expense from image ads, but the advocates would be happy and the ad producers happier still.
We might as well face it though, if enough interested influencers demand it Tesla might just do it. If that happens I shall sell my shares because it will mark the end of financial discipline and rationality at Tesla.
