Experiential Spaces: Tesla
An investigation into the process and methods of creating a branded environment. An exploration on how to reach a target audience, showcase the product and/or service, increase brand recognition, study site, scale, materiality, emotions, motivations, and impulses.
Overview
“Branded are living marketing experiences — less about the financial transaction and more about the emotional transaction.” — George Gotti, FutureBrand UXUS.
Tesla wants to pursue a pop-up shop model, and is interested in new ways of engaging with customers, without investing in a long term lease. This stand-alone space will be located in urban centers for short periods of time (3–4 weeks) and then moved to other cities around the country.
Brand Study and Analysis
History
Tesla was founded in 2003 by American entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, and named after Serbian American inventor Nikola Tesla. Co-founder Elon Musk then joined as chairman in 2004.
Mission Statement
In 2003, Tesla’s mission was to “commercialize electric vehicles, starting with a sports car.” Fast forward to 2017, Tesla’s mission has evolved to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”, and continues to be so today, in 2019.
Products / Services
Tesla’s initial sole product was the electric sports car. In 2008, Tesla released their first electric car, the Tesla Roadster, and continued to roll out improved and different car releases (Tesla S, X, 3). In 2012, Tesla began to also build and make Supercharger stations more prevalent and accessible. In 2016, Tesla bought solar panel company SolarCity, and in 2017, they no longer just sold cars, but also solar energy products. Currently, Tesla offers the Model S, 3, X, Y for car models, and Solar panels, Powerwall, Megapack, Powerpack for both residential and commercial solar power. Tesla has intentions to move towards the trucking industry, as well, with plans to roll out the Tesla Semi onto the market.
Tesla offers both digital and physical services. For digital they offer “over the air diagnostics”, SmartAlerts, and Mobile Service. “Over the air diagnostics” entails remote diagnostics about your car from your phone. SmartAlerts are notifications that walk you through minor car issues and also connect you to Service Center. Mobile Service is a service that brings the service to you when and where you find most convenient, by having a Tesla worker drive up to your car for direct assistance. For physical, Tesla has both spaces for both maintenance and repairs. Maintenance includes cabin air filter replacements, HEPA filter replacements, brake fluid tests, and winter care. Repairs can be scheduled and arranged for more individualistic issues and problems.
Competitors
Tesla’s main competitors in regards to the automobile industry include traditional auto companies such as Ford Motor Company, and General Motors. In 2018, US News ranked the top electric vehicles through a holistic scaling system based on a car’s range, efficiency, and price. Within this ranking system, Chevrolet Volt EV was placed first, followed by Tesla Model S as second, followed by Hyundai Ioniq EV’s as third.
Tesla’s main competitors in regards to the solar industry from biggest to smallest are Sunrun, First Solar, and Vivint Solar, in that order. Tesla currently stands at fourth among all these competitors.
Tesla’s cutting edge difference is that they were initially grounded in the electric market from the start, and as a result became the pioneer in the electric car manufacturing market. They also currently have the safest electric cars on the market, as well as the car with the greatest distance. However, most importantly, what Tesla has above its competitors is their strong and powerful business ethic on the focus to stay sustainable, no matter the cost or price. This has allowed the company to continuously move, innovate, and design along the business of doing good, which often becomes a problem with companies that accelerate and expand at large rates.
Audience
Based on HedgeCompany’s research on Model 3 (the most sold Tesla car) consumers:
Annual income: $128,140
Median Age: 46
Gender proportion: 84% male 16% female
Home ownership: 56% of the consumers own their home
Psychographic
There are currently three types of Tesla Consumers: hardcore loyal users, fad users, and switchers.
Hardcore Loyal Users — Early adopters, and those who consider themselves to be environmental activists.
Fad Users — People who embrace mass consumerism, and enjoy being on trend.
Switchers — People who are loyal to Tesla value and its positive influence on the environment, and are willing to change if another brand offers more affordable deals.
Brand Essence and Personality
Tesla truly believes in the goodness that they are pursuing; their primary mission lies in the business of doing good. Tesla values the acceleration of world’s transition towards sustainable energy more than profit. Their efforts to accomplish their mission are shown through pricing and expanding into the clean energy beyond just the electric cars, and priority in doing things the right way, through whatever means and cost necessary.
The philosophy of accessibility, innovation, simplicity, and confidence is embedded throughout Tesla’s products. Tesla brings the control and knowledge within the close reach of the user in a clear, intuitive, and responsive fashion.
Key Insights
From this, there are three key insights:
1. Tesla is striving to make sustainable and resourceful solar energy a commonplace, rather than a privilege.
2. Tesla prioritizes its pursuit for a standardized clean energy at any cost.
3. Tesla brings the power of control and knowledge of your car and energy, at your fingertips.
Brand Analysis Deck
The Holy Trinity Loop of Branded Experiences
Keeping the research in mind, I now began to think about manifesting these key insights into a physical and digital explorations through interaction and form.
Precedent Pop Ups
Tesla has previously rolled out a couple of pop-ups in 2015–16. Tesla on Tour is made up of two shipping containers with steel beams between and a canvas roof, and moves within Southern Europe according to most popular customer vacation spots — Barcelona, Algarve, Marbella, and other wealthy, attractive spots. A variety of articles mention that this was an approach to “another way to reach its customer base without setting up brick and mortar store or rolling out a traditional marketing campaign.”, and seems to only be targeted towards wealthy, upper-class car enthusiasts. Tesla mobile design studio is an Airstream trailer hooked up to their Model X and S, and moves around New York City. The design studio, housed within the trailer, allows buyers to pick out their color, fabric options, and all the decor points to customize their vehicle. Tesla’s Communications Manager, Will Nicholas, remarked“We have seen a lot of people get into our cars, into our airstream trailers, take photos post on social media, we are happy to have so many people interested.”
These Tesla pop up precedents are exactly attuned to the current brand attitude and image of Tesla — extremely future-orientated, luxury, and quite straight-forward in presenting their physical, tangible products at the forefront and main highlight of the space.
Porsche and BMW have also dabbled into the experiential pop-up industry, a holiday-themed pop up branded as the “world’s highest pop-up store” and a “BMW Gallery” that allows for test drives, respectively. Both of these brands showcased their car at the forefront of their spaces, both of which were also clean, grandeur, and luxurious, much like Tesla’s branded environments.
In regards to my pop-up, I want to re-orient the experience to be combat Tesla’s current perception of “luxury” and “unapproachable”, and highlight the primary aspect of Tesla that distinguishes it from other car-focused industries — their mission statement in accelerating the world to sustainable energy. In doing so, I want to appeal to a larger demographic of residents in a way that makes them feel connected and engaged, rather than simply “taking pictures on social media” and “being interested”; I want to create an experience in which visitors can not only realize and understand Tesla’s importance in being a leader in the sustainable energy industry, but also feel like a crucial role in Tesla’s overarching mission statement.
Opportunity Space
Tesla is striving to make sustainable and resourceful energy a commonplace, rather than a privilege.
Mood board
An overall mood board exploring the types of interaction, materiality, form, and aesthetic of the future space.
My mood boards centralized around three broad topics: 1. sustainability, 2. innovation, and 3. quality.
At this point, I was at a crossroads of creating two core visual identities, creating an environment that facilitated a feeling of familiarity, comfort, and approachability with “homey” attributes and high affordances with interaction, or creating a more so exhibition/show of some sort that exuded dominance, eye-catching presence, and high-strung energy.
Exploration with Space and Form
I then jumped back out into a broader scope by thinking of spatial shapes within a more abstract lens — simply on how visual attributes, actions, and characteristics can manifest in physical forms.
I jotted down several visual attributes — the most coherent with Tesla I felt were: transparency, modularity, reflection, slide, and fuse/merge. I explored these attributes three-dimensionally by manipulating card stock, tracing paper, and other various materials.
Exploration with Interaction
Next, I hopped into focusing on specific interactions within a more narrow scope. I wanted to explore several possible interactions: connect users to form a sense of community, create an engaging environment that illustrates the gravity of harnessing large amounts of power, and/or educate visitors the impacts of transitioning from unsustainable to more sustainable resources of energy.
One example of an idea was to create a normal, modern kitchen space, and have it be a full self-operating kitchen manned by robots, powered by Tesla Solar panels during the day, and the Power wall at night. Visitors would be able to easily walk into this familiar space, and understand the ability and power of Tesla in a comfortable, and understandable environment, that they could hopefully be able to envision and see playing out in their own homes as well.
Another example of an idea I had was to create a large scale installation in which users could “vote” on where to utilize energy harnessed by the Solar panels and Power wall throughout a particular duration of time. This vote system would then take place throughout the timespan of 1–2 weeks, with the ending being a big celebration and so-and-so highest vote taken action. Visitors would not only be able to see how a general data visualization of the amount of energy being generated, but also see their direct input contributed to a larger community effort at scale, and viscerally understand the ways in which they could work with Tesla to propel the world into sustainable energy. Examples of ways in which these votes could be catered to were local actions such as “power the Carnegie Mellon Library for 24 hours” or “provide heating at the local women’s shelter for 1 week”.
I also thought of a large, snow-globe pop up exhibition of sorts. I thought of this when I tried to break “out of the box” by formulating my pop-up to be a big globe/sphere shape, which led me to the idea of having an around-the-clock animated snowglobe, that visitors could either circle around, or walk inside to be “inside” the globe (a perefect photo-op, needless to say) This snowglobe would house a miniature train set that could circle around the globe, and be powered by solar panels by day and a power wall at night.
A third example of an idea that I had to create an elaborate Tesla Train track set that would be powered by the panels and Power wall; with a terrain that would alter and change dependent on the city that it was currently in. With this, visitors would be able to explore the entire space from both a zoomed in and zoomed out perspective, and see in a more “literal” form, a representation of how the city could one day, be predominately powered by sustainable solar energy, much to Tesla’s new mission statement.
Final Concept: The Tesla Gingerbread Factory
Tesla Gingerbread Factory is an approachable, conversational, and spirited pop up for the holiday season.
In the most familiar sense, it is three things:
- Open Kitchen
- Train Set
- Tesla Gigafactory
The entire pop up experience would be powered by Tesla solar panels during the daytime, and run on excess power generated using the Power wall during the nighttime.
Iterations
After solidifying my concept, I went back and forth between iterating digital and physical models to further think upon the spatial dynamics of my experience.
Physical Iterations
Physical Iteration 1
For this first iteration, I envisioned having a large center column dedicated to the cookie making process. Inside the center of this column would house several robotic arms, kitchen appliances, and the general cookie making assembly. Users would circle around this and be able to observe the open kitchen while enjoying cookies, and looking up at the ceiling above to observe and enjoy the powered train track on the ceiling. However, with this, the idea of having one singular large pole shooting upwards was not nearly as appealing of seeing an “open” kitchen, did not prove feasible for the amount of equipment needed, and also did not nearly incorporate a holistic process with the train set as the two were completely separate from each other.
Physical Iteration 2
This second iteration incorporated a more playful integration with the open kitchen set — having it be a snaked system that spanned from one corner to another. With this, I was also able to expand upon the surface area and actually consider the feasibility of all the retail space that the equipment would require. From this stage, I began to more critically map out all the types of equipment and interaction within the kitchen that would be required.
Physical Iteration 3
This time around, I moved more forward in incorporating a different type of curved angle to house the open kitchen, and also began thinking of the different ways in which the train could be integrated within the open kitchen up towards the ceiling. It felt incredibly unnatural (And also impossible) to have the train go up at a straight 90 degree angle, and so instead, I began exploring the ways in which the train could climb up at more feasible angles.
During this stage, I also started prototyping the different ways in which I could replicate the star of the show — the model train set. Initially, I had planned on printing the tracks, roads, and other flat features (as shown above), and then 3D printing small artifacts such as model trains, model cars, and so.
Physical Prototyping — Figuring out tracks, layout, and small elements
Digital Iterations
Digital Iteration 1
Digital Iteration 2
Digital Iteration 3
Digital Iteration 4
Digital Iteration 5
Digital Iteration 6
Digital Iteration 7
Digital Iteration 8
Location Analysis
For the first location, within Pittsburgh, I had three locations in mind that I did a cross-analysis on: Point State Park, Market Square, and South Side Works.
I ultimately chose Point State Park as my location for several reasons:
- ability to harness the greatest amount of sunlight due to unobstructed path / area.
- ability to target an ideal demographic of younger, working individuals who are at the intersection of making larger investments in their life.
- ability to generate a lot of foot traffic without congesting the area and/or surroundings (therefore allowing users to both line up for the pop-up, or observe and watch it from afar)
Site Location
The first stop of the pop-up will be located at Point State Park, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Site Renderings
Final Renderings (Night)
Materials
Wood: to signify touchpoint moments where users can interact and engage with.
Red Metallic: used for the hero wall, and to highlight elements around the popup for more festive and attention calling aspects.
White, concrete, etc: used for the floor and table
Glass: used for the sneeze guard, ceiling, and housing the ipads.
Types of Engagement
Active: decorating your own gingerbread cookie, following its journey in the making physically and with information touch points through AR, and observing the train set system.
Passive: simply going through the pop-up to observe the train set system, and open kitchen from afar.
Conclusion — Tesla Solar Panels and Power wall: Both the active and passive experience of Tesla lead to the hero wall on the other side of the entrance, in which houses and calls to attention a brief descriptor on the Solar Panel and Power wall.
Active
Personalized cookie, labeled with name, and descriptor to redirect attention and create awareness and understanding towards solar panels and Power Wall.
Passive
Hero Wall
At the end of both the Active and Passive journey, users are led to this hero wall that displays both the (inside) Tesla solar panels, as well as the Powerwall, and a brief description on how the entire pop-up is being generated by the solar panels by day and Powerwall at night.
Solar Panel Locations
Solar Panels are located both inside and outside, to allow for the most optimal
Physical Prototype
Summary
An exciting and dynamic, yet approachable holiday experience that allows one to understand Tesla’s role in the world as a leading renewable energy resource through both active and passive learning in a digestible format.
Pitch Deck:
Further Explorations
To progress further with this concept, I am looking to revisit incorporating Christmas lights to further engage and visualize the “night concept” of this experience, push further and elaborate the concept of AR glass screens during the gingerbread making process, and expand upon the possibilities of including more touch points with the bag design and the current Tesla app (ie. expanding there to be a pubic interface, allowing users to engage in conversation long after the pop-up experience).
References & Sources
(https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120314/who-are-teslas-tsla-main-competitors.asp) (https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/best-electric-cars)
(https://www.investopedia.com/news/solarcity-versus-first-solar-tsla-fslr/) https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/20/where-tesla-solar-is-most-competitive/
(https://blog.usejournal.com/teslas-competitive-advantages-what-it-has-in-common-with-apple-799eff0f20af)
