Inside the unorthodox marketing plans for Slate, a Jeff Bezos-backed EV

An electric vehicle venture with significant financial backing called Slate operated in near secrecy for three years as it fine-tuned a retail approach that will rely heavily on customer customization, while plugging affordability. And when the brand finally decided to go public this week, it did so in a most unusual way, with a stunty reveal campaign orchestrated by Mischief @ No Fixed Address and a sophisticated media approach from Known. The effort began last weekend when Slate began parking an unbranded vehicle on a street in Venice, California. Each day for five days, a single vehicle was wrapped in a different design promoting a series of preposterous businesses, including The Feline Therapist (therapy for your cat); Witch On Demand (curse your enemy); CryShare (your kid can be driven to sleep); Rare and Raw Catering Company (buy exotic meats); and Taxider-My-Family which, like it sounds, offers human-grade taxidermy. The businesses are fake, of course. While humorous, they had a serious business objective—to gain attention for a pickup truck/SUV brand that is looking to disrupt the EV marketplace with a relatively low base price tag of under $20,000 after incentives and a retail strategy that lets buyers customize with more than 100 options. “The definition of what’s affordable is broken,” Slate CEO Chris Barman said in a statement. “Slate exists to put the power back in the hands of customers who have been ignored by the auto industry.” Barman, an industrial engineering expert who once worked for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (now known as Stellantis), has been leading Troy, Michigan-based Slate since May 2022. Slate grew out of a firm called Re:Build Manufacturing, co-founded by former Amazon Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke, according to TechCrunch, which documented the “clandestine project” earlier this month. The family office of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was involved in a $111 million funding round for Slate in 2023, which was then known as Re:Car, according to TechCrunch. Barman was at Slate’s formal reveal event Thursday evening in Long Beach, California, which comes more than a year ahead of its plans to complete the first production vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2026. How Slate is customizing vehicle features There is a significant catch to Slate’s $20,000 entry price. It is for a bare-bones two-door, two-seat pickup truck, stripped of features that are commonplace with most entry-level configurations. It is, like the brand name suggests, a blank slate. There is no stereo, for instance, and the windows are rolled down manually with a crank, like the old days. Buyers can pay for upgrades by selecting from a menu that will include more than 100 accessories that can be configured online using a “Slate maker” tool. They range from a kit that converts the truck into a five-seat SUV to adding small design touches such as decorative “slatelettes” so buyers can “add little pieces of flair all across your dashboard to show off your style,” said Ben Whitla, Slate’s head of brand and marketing. Whitla, who joined Slate in January 2024 after stints at Los Angeles-based studio Religion of Sports and Grubhub, detailed Slate’s marketing and business approach in an interview with Ad Age. “One of the ways we save money is that in the factory, we only make one thing. We make the blank slate,” he said. And instead of grouping multiple features into a few different trim-level options, as most automakers do, Slate allows buyers to choose individual upgrades. Whitla derided traditional auto retail sales tactics that bundle multiple options: Someone might want a “really nice stereo system,” but be forced to pay for “heated seats and black and satin wheels and all this weird stuff that you didn’t necessarily want.” “We wanted to bring some of the fun back into cars,” Whitla said. “Get the blank Slate right off the line and then just go wild with personalizations and customizations.” Using influencers to promote fake businesses In that spirit, Slate wanted to inject the launch campaign with a lot more fun and frivolity than seen in a typical vehicle reveal, which often includes carefully selected product images parsed out to automotive journalists, culminating with an executive-filled event before pivoting to a polished TV ad campaign. Slate did buy a TV ad. But instead of meticulously describing the vehicle, the spot continues the story it began with the Venice stunt. The ad, from Mischief, features the fictional CEO of Taxider-My-Family who discusses the “unconventional” business—including buying pickling liquid for corpses—while touting the flexibility and functionality of his Slate truck. A 30-second version of the spot will run this weekend during “Saturday Night Live.” Slate’s marketing plan will lean heavily into social media and digital plays. The wrappings of the trucks parked in Venice earlier this week included website addresses for the fictional businesses, such as CatThurrrapy.com, which, when visited, showed a countdown clock for today’s reveal, as well as a form where visitors could enter their name and contact details to get more information on Slate. Beginning today, the brand is taking reservations to buy one of the vehicles for a refundable deposit of $50. To amplify the Venice stunt, Slate hired several influencers to post about the fake businesses. Michael Manigault, who goes by TheManiFamily and posts about cats, posted a TikTok of him passing by the Feline Therapist truck and pretending to book an appointment for his cat, for example. L.A.-based celebrity private chef Brooke “Chef Bae” Baevsky posted about the Rare and Raw Catering Company. Stefania Marzelia, founder of premium coffee brand Sip More Sips, was hired to plug Witch On Demand. Slate avoided working with auto influencers because “we wanted to connect with regular people,” Whitla said. Mischief won the assignment last year without a review, Whitla said. The agency was attracted by Slate’s “intention to launch and behave in a way unlike the industry has ever seen,” Mischief Executive Creative Director and partner Kevin Mulroy said in a statement. “Carmakers all seem caught up in an arms race of useless innovations that nobody is asking for, but everyone is paying for. Slate is automotive democratized,” he added. The campaign has drawn plenty of intrigue, including conversations on the Reddit “r/whatisthiscar” community, where a picture of the Cat Therapy truck drew speculative comments such as “Would love to know how the heck this random company got their hands on one before seemingly any formal announcement.” David Tracy, who writes for car culture website The Autopian, in a post on April 20 described his visit to the Venice site, calling it the “craziest new-car reveal ever.” He noted the contrast from typical reveals that involve spending “tens of thousands of dollars hiring photographers to make sure the perfect photos are released ahead of a debut,” while sending out “press releases to ensure the brand is received is a very particular way.” Slate’s media plan That is not to say Slate is avoiding modern marketing techniques. Its media plan has been carefully orchestrated by Known, where Whitla once worked, including as VP of marketing. Known, which has media agency of record status on the account, is using its “Big Lebotski” AI technology to scour Reddit threads, inserting sponsored posts about Slate in timely moments. It is also using AI to develop segments of potential Slate buyers, turning the data into virtual consumers that the brand can quiz about preferences and tastes to help inform what messaging might work in real life. “We’re constantly infusing creative and audience insights, so the media engine gets better every second, just like the Slate vehicle itself,” Known Chief Media Officer Kasha Cacy said in a statement. The short-term goal is to drive the reservations, which at $50 are less expensive than the $100 or more that automakers typically charge. “Our vehicle is more affordable than other vehicles. Our reservations should be as well,” Whitla said. “Once we start getting ready to deliver vehicles, we’ll want people to convert those reservations to orders.” Made in America and taking on Tesla To do so, it will have to overcome hurdles that have kept the EV market from fulfilling its once lofty sales expectations, including concerns about price and so-called range anxiety. The Trump administration’s 25% tariffs on imported vehicles are also expected to eat into demand for most automakers. Slate could be immune from some of that drag because it plans to make its vehicles at a U.S. plant; it has not disclosed a site, only stating in a press release today that they will be built at a “reindustrialized factory.” TechCrunch reported the plant would be near Indianapolis, Indiana, citing job listings and state lobbying records. Slate’s plan for direct-to-consumer sales, in which buyers can order vehicles online and have them delivered, eschews the dealer model that still dominates auto retailing. As tariffs cause “major disruption for both automakers and shoppers,” Slate’s “positioning as an affordable EV brand presents a timely and compelling message,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at car shopping site Edmunds. “Slate enters the market at a pivotal moment as Tesla is facing declining sales and reputational challenges,” she added, referring to the recent slump of the Elon Musk-run brand, which has dominated the EV market. “While Tesla’s brand strength and aggressive pricing once made it difficult for competitors to gain traction, this consumer sentiment shift opens the door for Slate to capture attention with strong branding, price and a unique product-teasing strategy.” Although Slate’s vehicles won’t be rolling off the assembly line anytime soon, it has no plans to pause its marketing after the tease phase. Slate is “treating it much more like a consumer brand, and less like an auto brand,” Whitla said. “We have tons and tons of content lined up. There are so many stories to tell with how you personalize it.” Also read: How marketers are adjusting their budgets in response to the economy

Inside the unorthodox marketing plans for Slate, a Jeff Bezos-backed EV

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