Dear Elon:
We all know and have come to accept that everything you touch turns to gold. You are the magician who at the same time is conquering space, the hole in the ozone layer, and the myth
that electric cars are for former hippies. You are the modern day equivalent to Leonardo da Vinci.
And we all admire you for that. But may I share with you a concern I have regarding your
celebrated Tesla Model S? My concern relates to the Sergio Zyman quote that “everything communicates” (Zyman was Coca-Cola CMO in the late 1990s).
This is still very much
true today. So what has me worried is that I read that the entire fleet of 167 Amsterdam Schiphol Airport taxis has been replaced with Tesla’s Model S. Just what will that communicate?
Amsterdam Schiphol airport is the fourth busiest airport in Europe and an important hub for (obviously) KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and its partners Delta and Air France. In 2013 (the latest full year
numbers) it handled 52.6 million passengers, and The Netherlands only has 17 million citizens!
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Schiphol (pronounced with an S, and then just clear as much phlegm from your throat as possible
to get a proper-sounding Dutch “ch,” usually identical now to the sound we make for ”g”) is also an airport that is very active on the corporate social responsibility
front.
It invests heavily in (green) infrastructure to maintain its enviable position in the industry. Schiphol recycles pretty much everything there is to recycle (and uses some of that
material to build runways!) and is powered by solar and bio-gas, in short, it’s the Unilever of airports in the world.
So I get why Schiphol wanted the Teslas. They make a great green
statement and are right on strategy with the airport’s sustainability efforts , while demonstrating to passengers that Schiphol is cool and current.
So, Elon, that ‘s what your
taxis do for Schiphol. But what do the taxis do for your brand?
On the positive side, the move will expose a small percentage of those 52.6 million passengers to your product, of which an even
smaller percentage might actually be a potential buyer of your cars. You could argue it is a great paid-for sampling opportunity.
But on the negative side, your car will now be seen as a taxi.
What are your thoughts on the Ford Crown Victoria? Sure, they are apparently unbreakable, and even after being used as a police cruiser can still find a life as a NYC taxi (or so said Mobil 1 in this commercial).
But is that what you want for your beautifully designed and otherwise carefully marketed car? Or are you inadvertently
placing it on par with other taxi workhorses from around the world? I give you the Mercedes E diesel (Germany), VW Beetle (Mexico), Mahindra Logan (India) and the newly introduced Nissan NV200 (New
York).
To be honest, I would have thought twice before jumping on the opportunity to sell 167 Teslas on one order, because everything communicates. But what do I know? I am not Elon Musk!