Tesla’s Gamble on MAGA Customers Won’t Work

On the most basic level, there are two steps to selling anything: You create a product, and then you figure out how to persuade people to buy it.

Sometimes the pitch is straightforward. Maybe there’s a need for some widget, and you’ve figured out how to produce widgets at a lower cost than others. Usually, though, you’re going to have to spin more of a yarn. Consumers are being pitched near-identical products with near-identical purposes all the time; if you want to catch anyone’s attention, that usually means addressing not just what people want or need but also how they want to feel. A widget that also lets people mark themselves as smart or rich or rebellious or virtuous is a more valuable product than one that simply performs the same baseline function. In a saturated consumer market, your product needs vibes. This is, more or less, what “branding” means.