I think its fair to say that the reasons a rocket company does not need to advertise dont apply to companies that people buy weekly/monthly on a grocery store shelf.

Besides, the advertising budget of other government contractors/satellite companies is also close to zero.

The better question is "If I ran Pepsi today - would I drastically lower the advertising budget". I'm not sure what my move would be but I don't think looking at short term ROI of TV ads would be informative.

Also Tesla does not 'need' to advertise, yet.

It is effectively advertised by everyone for Elon for near 0 dollars. Launch a rocket (different company) the article will mention Tesla for them. Talk about saving the environment guess who gets mentioned. Talk about power needs, Tesla comes up as cars are becoming a large consumer of electricity, solar, coal, nuke, etc.

His advertising is basically being done for free by companies who do not even really realize it.

And yet https://cometcleaner.com/ is an enduring consumer brand that has been around for decades and does basically no advertising.

A story that I remember from the 80s is that the brought in a consultant to improve sales. Rather than advertising, they opted to add one more hole to their cans. Sales went up 20%.

> rocket company does not need to advertise dont apply to companies that people buy weekly/monthly on a grocery store shelf.

Starlink? That's consumer-facing.

I think if we get to the point where they are trying to get people to switch their cell phone or internet plans - they will do more traditional tv/online advertising.

That being said - I don't think a successful one-time advertising push by a completely new field speaks to the long-term benefits of it once they (presumably) become established.

Those aren't great examples.

SpaceX and Tesla absolutely have marketing in the forum of a crazy CEO that makes the news a lot. SpaceX fancy rockets gives him a platform to spew crazy shit all the time and the media loves it.

Beats makes inferior products and yet has twice the revenue of Sennheiser. That's because of marketing.

> They barely advertise and have huge brand recognition.

The show rooms they have at most higher end shopping malls are definitely an advertisement. I'm with you on Sennheiser though.

Academics divide awareness into status (perceived quality) effects and reputation (actual quality) effects. Paid marketing influences both, but there are other ways of getting your name out there, and some companies are better at it than others.

> I'd buy Sennheiser over Beats

Sennheiser has a higher reputational quality than Beats, but most people know of Beats because of Beats' affiliations (status) and their large marketing budget.

They actually make their products more expensive than necessary by making the client pay for something they have no use for: advertisement - making it less competitive by this extra price. I avoid heavily advertised product when I have a choice (and when not, then it has just no benefit for the company to pay for advertisement: I'd buy it without adverts for the same price.)

SpaceX and Tesla do viral marketing, and they are really good at it.

In a narrow sense, Tesla doesn't advertise: they don't buy ad spots on TV, but they certainly do it in other ways. I mean, SpaceX started because Elon Musk wanted to buy a Russian ICBM to put a small greenhouse on Mars as a publicity stunt, Russians said "WTF lol no", Elon Musk said "Ok, I will make my own rockets". I don't know if it is true but it certainly shows the lengths Elon Musk is ready to go when it comes to marketing.

And you say you'd buy Sennheiser over Beats, but you certainly know about Beats. Everyone knows about Beats. To give an idea of the power of Beats relentless advertising, audiophiles (Beats supposed enemies) make articles like "list of bass heavy headphones that are better and cheaper than Beats" (that are not that much cheaper). It may seem like they are attacking Beats, but instead, they have just set them as a reference. Bass heavy headphones = Beats. They talk smugly about how Beats prioritize form over function (Headphones that look cool = Beats). Guess what someone who wants bass heavy headphones that look cool will buy, even though they Beats is far from the only one offering such products?

You won't buy Beats, they don't care, you are not their target. If they want to capture your market, they will create or buy another brand, and use a different marketing strategy.