This week, Clare and I have been discussing roofing and roofing tiles. Not the most riveting topic I’m sure you will agree.
The conversation arose, as we have a client who works in the roofing industry who needed some digital marketing to increase their customer base. As Clare and I were delving deep, doing website and social media research into roofing and the clients competitors, we found, as you may well imagine, the roofing world is quite a dull world.
We joked that design, style, humour, decent marketing, social media strategy, mobile ready websites seem to have been forgotten about in this industry. Left out in the sun, to wither and dry up.
It feels like an industry, that could really do with shaking up and dragging kicking and screaming into the 21st century. After all, it’s an important industry, an important service, whose sole aim is to literally put a roof over our heads.
Fast forward to this morning, I’d woken up to a notification from Tesla’s YouTube Channel. Elon Musk, the Tesla & SpaceX head honcho and all round tech pioneer, talking about – you guessed it – Roof Tiles!
An apt video I quickly had to digest for obvious reasons. Plus, I always look forward to any new Elon Musk video or announcement.
Whether it be his vision for how we can colonise planet Mars. How an affordable, driverless car will be here soon. How we can power our entire home with a Tesla Powerpack, fed from the power of the Sun. But roof tiles Elon?
His latest announcement – a joint project between SolarCity and Tesla – the Solar Roof Tiles, is going to help disrupt the roofing and solar energy industry. The tiles are designed and manufactured in the usual Tesla way – with class, with durability, with style and that have the ultimate purpose of looking like any other bog standard roof tile – but with photovoltaic panels embedded to harness the energy of the Sun. A seamless tile that in time will be cheaper to manufacture than normal tiles, with so many more benefits.
Linked with a Tesla PowerWall (energy storage for the home, charged by solar power in the), this could be the real drive that enables people en masse to not rely as heavily on coal powered, or nuclear powered stations. A move towards to a sustainable energy future.
Is the roofing industry ready to race into the 21st century, and help change the way we power our homes? Power our cars, heat our homes?
Will design, marketing and technology become more important in the roofing industry?
Elon Musk has just taken the roof of this industry, so it’s already begun.
Are you looking to bring your design and marketing into the 21st century? To disrupt your industry? Tell us how you think you can do it by starting a project.
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash