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The growth in the US electric vehicle market may be slowing, but that isn\u2019t stopping Slate Auto, a startup backed by investors including LA Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter and Jeff Bezos, from coming out strong.<\/p>\n
Marketing Brew chatted with Slate\u2019s head of brand and marketing, Ben Whitla, about the company\u2019s marketing, which it\u2019s rolling out amid slowing growth in the domestic EV market. The startup\u2019s marketing, Whitla said, is designed to emphasize Slate\u2019s personalization options and its lower price point in an effort to appeal to more cost-conscious consumers.<\/p>\n
While the company has often been compared to other EV outfits that sell pricey cars, like Tesla and Rivian, Whitla said Slate\u2019s pricing is more on par with used cars: an uncustomized Slate EV can cost less than $20,000 with the federal EV tax credit; without it, the price is around $27,500. That could stand to change with the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cbig, beautiful bill,\u201d which could gut those incentives and has already been passed by the House. (It\u2019s now headed to the Senate.)<\/p>\n
If incentives are indeed erased, Slate will still be \u201cwell-positioned in the US with a strong proposition of value, safety, and customization,\u201d Whitla wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
The company still plans to begin production in 2026 on the vehicles, which, when uncustomized, are relatively bare-bones: slate grey and with no radio. Customers can pay more to customize the vehicles with features like wraps and SUV kits.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing an electric vehicle is probably the least interesting thing about our car,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat makes us interesting is our personalization and our affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slate has been operating since 2022, but it made its public debut in April with a splashy campaign that involved parking a Slate vehicle on a street in Venice, California. Each day, the car was wrapped with an advertisement for a new fictional business, like CryShare, a business designed to drive babies to sleep, or The Feline Therapist (therapy for cats).<\/p>\n
The goal of the fake advertisement stunt, Whitla said, was to get the Internet buzzing and grab some earned media.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur intention was to let the internet do what we believe the internet does best, which is try and solve a mystery,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know the internet loves to solve a mystery. So we thought, \u2018Let\u2019s put a mystery out into the world and see if the internet solves it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Beyond the out-of-home advertising, Slate has undertaken an aggressive influencer campaign with both paid and organic posts, Whitla said. That included recruiting a diverse array of influencers beyond just creators in the auto space in an effort to reach more of the consumer base that Slate is looking to court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had chefs, dog groomers, outdoor enthusiasts, all sorts of people that really were not car audiences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Slate also sought to drive home its personalization options by bringing in influencers for early previews of the vehicle. The brand customized vehicles for each influencer tailored to their interests and personalities, Whitla said, including people like Jess Rona, a dog groomer with 473,000 followers on Instagram. By doing so, he said, influencers were likely more excited to share content about Slate with their followers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the car at reveal was orange, you see 25 people talking about the same orange vehicle with basically the same pictures and videos,\u201d he said. \u201cThat didn\u2019t feel like us, and it didn\u2019t feel like our personalization coming through.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company is positioning itself as a primarily digital-first brand, but, besides employing an OOH campaign, it has also dabbled in linear TV advertising. One 30-second ad, which ran during a recent episode of Saturday Night Live <\/em>on NBC, showcases a fictional human-taxidermy business called Taxider-My-Family that uses a Slate vehicle to lug around the bodies of loved ones that have been, um, preserved. The full ad clocks in at almost two minutes, but it is running shorter, 15- and 30-second versions on digital and CTV.<\/p>\n Amid the marketing push, the company had already garnered over 100,000 reservations for its vehicle in mid-May, per TechCrunch. However, there are larger political and economic factors at play that could affect its growth. For one, macroeconomic uncertainty is rife amid the Trump administration\u2019s haphazard implementation of tariffs, and consumers could tighten their purse strings, which might mean looking for more affordable vehicles to purchase\u2014or holding off on big-ticket items entirely<\/p>\n Despite the broader landscape Slate is facing, Whitla downplayed its competition with other EVs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are other cars and other EVs that people will try and compare us to, but the reality is, we should be compared to anyone who\u2019s shopping at our price point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n