Elon Musk, noted corny tech dad, wants Tesla to be marketed as a lifestyle brand

Tesla is known for its sleek, modern, self-driving electric vehicles and its dorky-dad founder and CEO, Elon Musk. But Tesla as a brand is looking to be more of an empowering lifestyle brand, according to documents obtained by Business Insider.

The document, which is from early 2018, speaks about portraying Tesla’s line of products as an “ecosystem” that can be a “one stop shop to power your lifestyle.” That includes maintaining some degree of seriousness, and shying away from things like puns, according to Business Insider.

And then there’s Elon — Oh, Elon Musk. How we love to watch you attempt to dance on stage. You’re many, many things, but the head of a “lifestyle brand” isn’t one that comes to mind.

A dreamer, for sure, with his head in the clouds and his mind on Mars. When it comes to personal branding, he knows a lot of him is just “complete nonsense at this point.” He loves using Twitter, especially for those Deep Thoughts you just can’t publish anywhere else.

Tesla as a lifestyle — This branding makes sense for Tesla — though perhaps not in the traditional sense. The company wants to be at the forefront of a future-forward “lifestyle” that values being the best and the fastest and consuming the least amount of energy while doing so. The marketing documents speak to aiming to “empower” customers, but it doesn’t say much about how it hopes to do so.

The best in the world — A fair amount of the document is also reserved for Tesla to use exaggerated superlatives to describe its products. It includes phrases like “the best products in the world,” “the best experience ever,” and “our cars are the safest, quickest cars on the road.”

The newfound documents are from a couple of years ago, and Tesla’s marketing strategy has almost definitely evolved since then. And so has Elon Musk.