It's the same as with Apple. If you put out so much marketing about how your products are perfect every little flaw will be hyped just as much as you hype the positive traits.
Apple's actual marketing budget is famously modest compared to their competitors. I believe their spending has increased in the last couple of years though.
The best marketing is that which does not require a huge budget -- when Apple stores are pilgrimage destinations, when you can get millions of people to actively tune in to watch a two and a half hour long infomercial every year, you don't need, say, million-dollar Super Bowl ads. That does not mean it's not very intentional, and it's definitely still marketing.
And people have been saying exactly the same things about Apple back when their marketing budget was a tenth of that. The amount of marketing Apple puts out just isn't relevant to this issue.
Not even remotely the same. Tesla gets into international news when one guy has an accident. Apple got into international news when they made a design/manufacturing error for an entire generation of phones.
There was also the antenna issue on the iPhone 4, which was patched by giving away the free bumper cases and redesigning with the iPhone 4s. One would call a design issue with all iPhone 4 models an "entire generation", no?
The bumper cases weren't given away because Apple did something wrong, they were given away to try and counter the bad PR that other companies were drumming up. The antenna "issue" that the iPhone 4 had was also an "issue" for every other smartphone.
Sure, the bumper cases helped, because they moved your hand away from the antenna area. But bumper cases would also help every other smartphone. It was provably not an issue specific to Apple and affected all brands (often to a larger extreme than the iPhone), but there's not much press value in pointing out a common problem for all smartphones whereas there is a lot of press value in manufacturing negative stories about Apple.
The only reality distortion field in effect here is the one that causes everybody to intentionally ignore the fact that every other smartphone had the same problem, and refuse to even acknowledge that fact when other people point it out.
The positives are often hyped up so much, not just by the company itself, but the media as well, that some negative, no matter how small, ought to counteract those with almost as much force.
Action and reaction and all that. There has to be an equilibrium.
