College Grads Create Fake Tesla Commercial That Elon Musk Loves 100
cartechboy (2660665) writes "Two University of Southern California grads were looking to start a digital content company so they decided to roll the dice and create a home-made (but incredibly professional looking) television commercial for Tesla — just to see if they could get some attention for it. Well, apparently, mission accomplished. R.J. Collins and James Khabushani took $1,500 and created a 60-second Tesla 'faux-mercial' dubbed 'Modern Spaceship' that is well, pretty good. Elon Musk noticed, tweeted it and has helped the thing go viral."
Re:A toy for the 1%ers (Score:3, Insightful)
At least it is being manufactured in the USA man.
Fake? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a fake commercial. It's a real commercial. They just made it without having been asked or paid.
Re:Lemme posit this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, when it comes to car commercials, ad agencies are bound by so many rules and regulations regarding depictions of reckless driving and such things that it becomes almost impossible tp create a cool car commercial without running the risk of going to court over it (both the ad agency AND car manufacturer).
These kids are not bound by such ass backwards rules, thanks goodness.
An the car ads that scream at you are from dealerships, not manufacturers. I still remember JOE MYERS FORD (Houston, TX dealership) ad screaming in my ears despite not having seen it in over 10 years.
Re:Lemme posit this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lemme posit this... (Score:5, Insightful)
The big reason: you aren't in the target demographic for TV commercials. I suspect that you would find the advertising in a trade publication that interests you similarly interesting, because you would be in the target demographic.
Time is another consideration. This is a 1 minute commercial, so they have time to "tell a story". I'm pretty sure that most commercials are 30 seconds, and even 15 seconds, in length. That's barely enough time to get a person's attention and blurt out your product name.
Re:Fake? (Score:5, Insightful)
The creators weren't connected to Tesla as part of any form of commerce so it isn't a commercial.
But it encourages the watcher to engage in commerce with Tesla, which is pretty much the definition of a commercial.
Re:A toy for the 1%ers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes (Score:0, Insightful)
Americans love to celebrate their edge-cases.
Self-made millionaires who started out with few-if-any advantages and who got there through hard work do exist. Yet for every one of them there are millions of people in the exact same circumstances, who work just as hard or harder, and never become millionaires.
Connections aren't, strictly-speaking, a necessity for becoming very rich. But connections are a whole lot more advantageous than hard work.
Re:Lemme posit this... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, ten years after the fact, you still remember the name "Joe Myers Ford"? Sounds like those ads succeeded in creating brand awareness.
Yes, but that's only a good thing if you subscribe to the notion of "all publicity is good publicity." In many cases the ad can do the opposite of what you want. Ex. People who remember Dr Pepper because "not for women."
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
The key thing is that most of them are self made, and aren't born into wealth. Some 70% of them, in fact.
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/ne... [stanford.edu]
Honestly I'm sick of this invented war that some people call class warfare. It just doesn't fucking exist, nobody has declared war on anybody else except for the OWS types, and even then they make up less than 1% of the population themselves.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
'Self made' is a myth, all of them had to first develop strong and binding connections with sources of capital, influence and discreet knowledge not their own. It is as much, and more in most cases, the cultivation of these relationships as it is their talents and vision that make for success.
Re:Fake? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a fake commercial. It's a real commercial. They just made it without having been asked or paid.
"Unofficial commercial" would be a good term.