Unpopular opinion: Rivian shouldn’t be running ads

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Why would you advertise to sell more of a product that causes you to lose more money the more you sell?

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[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Ads come up all over my social media. Seems to be they're mostly targeting EV-haters and uneducated boomers. And stock short-sellers. Never seen so many downright offensive, nasty, ignorant comments on some of them. A lot of comments seem to be from shills from the oil industry, stolen profiles, and Russian bots. A lot of copy & pasted responses, or they just say "Ugly!" You can tell 99% of people responding have never driven a Rivian or even sat in one, but want to grace us with their unpleasant opinions anyway.

And then I respond, which makes more ads show up, it's a self-repeating cycle. The more you respond, the more ads you see. But imo I don't think the ads are getting to the right people. Just wasting money.

 

[alacritousOmega]

Why would you advertise to sell more of a product that causes you to lose more money the more you sell?

exactly! Lol

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Why would you advertise to sell more of a product that causes you to lose more money the more you sell?

Because Rivian is not making any money at all if cars are just sitting in the holding lot.

Here's the CliffNotes version (and probably not 100% academically correct, but you get the gist). It applies to all cars and all products (computers, stereos, washing machine, groceries, etc.).

• Outside of the actual manufacturing cost, every product made/sold has additional costs associated with it. Let's just call all of it total cost, the full cost to bring a product from idea to "stores".
• For accounting purposes, total cost is spread over every single unit made, to-date (any day). That's your cost-per-unit figure (A). It is not a constant number. It changes.
• The more units you make & sell, figure A gets smaller and smaller—because you are dividing total cost by more and more units made & sold.
• At some point, as number of units made & sold continue to increase, you reach and surpass a break-even point; where the selling price (B) is equal to or greater than A.
• Until you reach this point, A is greater than B, and the difference is what is referred to as loss-per-vehicle.
• If Rivian doesn't advertise and sell every single car they make, they will never reach and surpass that break even point.

 

[iansriv]

I still run into people that have NO idea what this vehicle is or who makes it, so unlike Tesla they may need more than word of mouth to drive interest/sales.

I get a lot of people at Costco always asking "what is that, who makes it." Rivian needs a targeted ad at my local Costco.

 

[R1 EVY]

Why would you advertise to sell more of a product that causes you to lose more money the more you sell?

On a per vehicle basis, they're losing less money on every subsequent vehicle they sell. Without the interest rate changes, they would've hit break even this year.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

I get a lot of people at Costco always asking "what is that, who makes it." Rivian needs a targeted ad at my local Costco.

They just need to learn to read. Unless debaged, the letters are all there.

 

[iansriv]

They just need to learn to read. Unless debaged, the letters are all there.

It's ok. Doesn't bother me. I'm more than happy to share info. I'm a nice guy; specially if it helps my stocks.

 

[ads75]

What sold me was their Spaces and test drives. They even drove out to my location for my second test drive.

Ads get people interested in a product. That's what they do. They don't expect someone to see an instagram ad once and then decide they will spend $90k on a truck. Ads get people to their Spaces and make test drives. How many Spaces does Rivian have, nine? Most of us live no where near one of them. Only reason I know about them is because I see them on this site or reddit. I had to look on their website to see where any of them are, I was surprised they have 9 listed. Spaces are basically a different form of advertising, you can't get service at one, and you don't need to go to one to buy a Rivian. I If I wanted a test drive, I would've had to drive 2.5 hours each way to do one. Ads are supposed to get people interested in a product Thats why profit driven companies do them. I still have people ask who makes my truck, or what it is.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

It's ok. Doesn't bother me. I'm more than happy to share info. I'm a nice guy; specially if it helps my stocks.

Here in SoCal only one person has posed that question to me, a neighbor. Most people are too engrossed in themselves/their business to notice. To them, I'm just another truck. Or just desensitized by daily occurrence of uncommon cars.

 

[fyton2v]

At this point, I think they should be advertising in the places that can target people who can afford the vehicles parked in normal. The work they’ve done in the marketing space has been quite good and interesting, at least to me. I liked the style and mystery of those R2 segments. I think they were remarkably well done, on brand, and compelling.

I’d expect that similar commercial segments in places that attract a lot of eyeballs from NY and CA would be effective.

While Tesla didn’t advertise, Tesla had Musk. He was/is a huge media figure and a walking, talking commercial. We happen to know who RJ is, but the world does not. He probably can’t be Elon, so they need to develop brand awareness through more traditional channels.

 

[BG_ATX]

I am watching March Madness on TNT (Youtube TV) and a Rivian R2 commercial just came on. My head was down and my wife said Rivian, to which I remarked Rivian doesn’t do commercials. Of course I was wrong, first I’ve seen on TV. Again, this was YouTube TV so not sure if that was a network (TNT) broadcast commercial or not.

 

[shimps1]

YouTubetv does targeted ads on occasion.
Same as if you were watching YouTube on your computer. That was not a network television ad. Sometimes it's "peaceful relaxation" noises, sometimes a targeted ad.

 

[Gen(R3)Xer]

I have heard a referral program is being considered.

I think now is a good time to do ads, actually. They kinda hit the wall as far as demand after they got through their order backlog. Interest rates remaining high didn’t help. They can always stop running ads if the orders start flowing again. It’s easier now than ever to run targeted ads to hit the audiences you want to see your product.

There are a lot of people who don’t know what a Rivian is, so informative ads could help. I think they should lean into how they’re the #1 EV truck, according to MotorTrend. Put some stats out there to inform people.

The ads I’ve seen are completely quiet and just show a brief clip of the R1T off-roading. They’ve got to get the gen pop onboard if they expect to survive. I think the R2 commercial does that, but it’s not coming out until 2026.

With these stupid interest rates it’s a bad time to be selling any high-end item.

 

[Gen(R3)Xer]

I am watching March Madness on TNT (Youtube TV) and a Rivian R2 commercial just came on. My head was down and my wife said Rivian, to which I remarked Rivian doesn’t do commercials. Of course I was wrong, first I’ve seen on TV. Again, this was YouTube TV so not sure if that was a network (TNT) broadcast commercial or not.

That’s great, but the R2 isn’t out until 2026. They need to make a more affordable R1S NOW! Hopefully that’s what the shutdown is about.

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