When it comes to Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), the electric vehicle giant is notorious for not partaking in much traditional advertising, instead relying on word of mouth and strong sales and ratings to help spotlight the brand. Investor Gary Black believes the company needs a marketing plan for its upcoming new products.

Gary Black on Tesla Marketing

As Tesla pushes beyond electric vehicles into new products, Black believes the company needs to reset.

"Despite a $1.3T market cap, TSLA has not invested in the marketing leadership needed to expand its business beyond EVs to autonomous driving and Optimus," Black tweeted.

The Future Fund managing partner said Tesla needs to "invest in long-term marketing strategy and branding" alongside having a talent team of engineers and product builders.

Black compares the necessity to perhaps one of the greatest product marketers of all time, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).

"Without great marketing, $AAPL would not be a $4.4T market cap company. Great products do not just sell themselves through word-of-mouth and the CEO’s posts on X."

The investor says that Tesla has made strategic mistakes in the EV business, such as failing to launch a compact vehicle to expand its total addressable market or a conventional pickup truck. These missteps may have been avoided if Tesla had "long-term marketing thinking" at the company, Black said.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the Optimus and robotaxis could be trillion-dollar revenue drivers and the most important products in the company’s history.

The company shows off these products during earnings calls and shareholder events, but likely will not be doing TV commercials, online ads or other traditional marketing methods used by other tech companies.

For those buying Apple products, there’s a good chance they’ve seen a commercial for the product, or a brightly colored poster in a window somewhere. Those marketing methods go alongside Apple’s traditional product showcase events and social media posts.

Tesla Stock Underperforming

In the tweet, Black says that Tesla’s lack of marketing efforts could be why the stock has "significantly underperformed" the market over the last five years.

Black shares the five-year performance of Tesla stock vs. the Nasdaq 100 in the tweet. Here’s a look at Tesla stock vs. the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq 100 and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the S&P 500.

Stock/ETF	Year-to-Date Performance	One-Year Performance	Five-Year Performance
Tesla	-24.8%	-3.0%	+37.8%
SPY	+13.5%	+20.3%	+74.0%
QQQ	+18.8%	+25.5%	+97.5%

The table shows that Tesla stock has underperformed against the two market indexes year-to-date, over the last 52 weeks, and over the last five years, by a significant margin.

"Key question: What’s going to change this?"

Black says Tesla investors are clinging to "misplaced hope" that SpaceX is going to buy the company later this year.  

Photo courtesy: Giovanni Cancemi / Shutterstock.com