Tesla ad gets attention despite not being an ad

A promotional video posted to the Twitter account of Tesla Asia is being called the first Tesla commercial.

The video, posted Friday, is part of a long-running series called “Drive to Believe.” The video features a young woman in Singapore praising her Tesla Model 3. Most of the campaign’s videos are similar in structure and usually feature customer testimonials.

The video was posted a few days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company would “try a little advertising” at the annual shareholder meeting.

The company has famously not done any traditional advertising as every other large car company does. Mr. Musk has long said that he believes spending money on ads is a waste of money and opted for word of mouth as an alternative.

“Tesla does not advertise or pay for endorsements. Instead, we use that money to make the product great,” he tweeted in 2019.

Mr. Musk said in an interview following the announcement that he wasn’t aware that advertising was something people wanted, and that he only decided to try it after people asked him about it.

The auto market, and Tesla’s place in it, has changed drastically since Mr. Musk’s public decision not to advertise.

Since then, several larger auto manufacturers have pushed out their own electric vehicles, which means Tesla has to deal with much more competition.

In response, Tesla has dropped the prices on several of its high-selling cars like the Model X and Y.

Mr. Musk’s recent dealings with advertisers as Twitter CEO may have given him more insight into the effectiveness of commercials.

After taking over the company late last year, several businesses announced they would be pulling from the platform, citing some of Mr. Musk’s public statements and policies as the reason.

Since then, Mr. Musk has announced that Linda Yaccarnio, former advertising chief at NBCUniversal, would be replacing him as CEO later this year.