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Welcome to In-Orbit, the fortnightly podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world.
[00:00:00] Dallas: Hi there and welcome to Outer Orbit. In these short little bonus episodes we're going to be continuing the conversation from our main episode, focusing in on a particular guest, a particular topic or a point of view. Now last week we were joined by Daniel Smith from Astro Agency and today we're joined by someone else from AstroAgency it's Daria Filichkina, commonly known as Dasha and she's the Chief Operating Officer at AstroAgency and we're going to be answering, well, I suppose a controversial question, I guess. When it comes to marketing, do we need to be talking about space itself? Welcome, Dasha. It's nice to see you. I have met you in person because you work at Astro Agency, of which I know quite a lot about and I've worked with you guys a lot over the last few years. Just for anyone who missed our main episode, just tell us a little bit about Astro Agency, what Astro Agency do.
[00:01:01] Daria: So we are a marketing communications market intelligence agency and we focus exclusively on the space industry. So we help companies communicate their messages, all the space companies who need to reach their target audiences finds their voice and space in the industry, we essentially help them. Our service is different from social media, public relations and all sorts of smaller things to bigger pieces like market analysis and research. So yeah, essentially helping companies market themselves better.
[00:01:34] Dallas: It's kind of interesting actually, the product of space companies, the data they produce, whatever it might be, whatever it is that they do, the companies that use that data or those services, do they care about that it comes from space? Like are you kind of actively selling space as the thing, or does no one really give a damn?
[00:01:52] Daria: Well, it's a balance. People are quite often excited about space, but that's not necessarily a reason to actually close a deal and close a sale and this is something that we've seen throughout years of work with these companies and we actually were doing a research, one of our bigger pieces that I mentioned where we were talking to different audiences and the question was, how do we help data companies commercialise their products? And one of the issues was the language barrier where the audience, the recipients, they were excited about space, yeah, that's cool, but they didn't necessarily understand how that helps them. So, as one of the suggestions that we left at the end of the report was to change the language that we use because with the space industry, it is quite common that everyone who works here is enthusiastic. I haven't met anyone in the space industry who are like, uh, just an industry, just a job, no, everyone is over the top about it. But when we are actually making a sale, when we are delivering the business case, this shouldn't be the front and center, this is what we've seen. Quite often and this is well researched fact, people's like prior knowledge about the subject influences people's further perceptions. So in simple words, whatever people know about space already influences how they perceive what I'm telling them. So if I'm talking to someone from the pharma industry trying to sell space data services and I tell them space provides you limitless opportunities, this is actually how many companies set the scene when they talk about their companies. That layers on the foundation of what people already know about space and this is quite often sci fi, Star Wars, telecommunications, satellites. So it just doesn't match when they hear space gives you limitless opportunities. They are like, how, how complex is that? So that is a challenge. So we suggest filling in that gap with talking about business case first, talking about how complex it is to deliver what the solution to the problem people are looking for, because people who are making decisions, they need to have all those broad informations and after that, we suggest mention space as well.
[00:04:01] Dallas: I would have thought kind of space would be a useful kind of crutch, like a useful kind of way into talking about... only because if you're not in the space industry and you mention space and people kind of prick their ears up and let you say they think about Star Wars or whatever.
[00:04:16] Daria: Quite often, you know, and I'm not suggesting that people don't know anything about space, but look, we're all professionals in our areas and like, they have a different connotation for space. Quite often, and this is so sad, but people say, Oh, I was a huge space enthusiast in my childhood and then I grew up and got a job. Why are these two things polar? So when we're talking to people in the professional setting, how often do they actually get the message about space in their professional environment? I doubt that too often. So their higher knowledge is the foundation for what we're telling them. So they have this gap and they're like, how's that, how's that limitless opportunities? So in that case that unnecessary confusion, but if we start with business case about return on investment with solutions that are already available, because it might not be as complex as they think, or we speak about all the potential add ons to what they already have, because industries are already advanced. If we're talking about farming, let's say, they're a very developed industry, very advanced. So how does that space addition help what's already there? So if we talk about that and answer more practical things, that helps drive the conversation we want it to be driven. If we start with, this is space data, we can solve any problem that you have, drive the conversation a different way, people start telling about how they were space enthusiasts when they were five, so it's just driving the conversation.
[00:05:40] Dallas: Give us an idea, you're based up in Scotland and Scotland's having a bit of a space renaissance. Everything seems to be happening in Scotland at the moment. Obviously, we launch up there in Shetland. There seems to be so much going on, just give us a bit of an outline from where you're sitting as a marketing person, what the industry is like and how it can improve from your point of view.
[00:05:59] Daria: So Scotland, you are right, is unique in a way that it offers the entire value chain opportunities. So when we talk space, we talk all things space, we talk deep space exploration, one of the elements of the James Webb Telescope being developed in Edinburgh, so we cover that part, but we also cover the data part as well, applications, we cover launch, we cover the flight chain, so Scotland has all the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle of the industry and that's how it's unique.
[00:06:29] Dallas: I'm interested in, from a marketing perspective, from where you're sitting, you've got all this kind of great space stuff, as you say, in science and academia, but also launch, but also data, all these different sections. Where you're sitting, what does it look like? Is it growing quickly? Do we need more marketing? Is more marketing important?
[00:06:47] Daria: Yeah, it looks nowadays that everyone needs marketing because people actually recognise that necessity and this is what we quite often hear. There is no meeting or a conference out there that goes without mention of we need to communicate ourselves better. People understand that we need to talk more about why we are actually doing it. It is useful for adjacent sectors and different industries that can collaborate with space, it is useful for situations when we talk to government, it is useful for when we talk to people generally and where markets and B2C business to consumer, right? So it is useful in all those areas and we need to go beyond the just excitement, oh, yeah, space is cool, how does that?
[00:07:26] Dallas: But is there still an excitement? Is there still a bit of a buzz around the industry?
[00:07:29] Daria: I think so. Also on where we sit in here, one of our USPs is the fact that we actually understand what those companies do because we are not just a marketing company that focuses on space, you know and we are actually from the industry. We were born from the industry. So we understand what companies do and we help companies translate their messages into different languages for different target audiences. So even though buzz exists, it is a bit difficult to transform the message from being highly technical, because this is rocket science after all, this is complex. So, the challenge is to transform that message into something digestible, into something that is useful for the industries and again, I want to like highlight it very much, that I'm not diminishing other professionals, other people. We know nothing about other industries as well. We were talking to a logistics company and found out lots of amazing stuff, which are a normal thing for them, but amazing for us. So I think it's been a natural process. We just forget sometimes that we have to fill in that gap. So this is where we stand and people started to recognise it more because we want people to be more involved, we want more skills, we want more engagement with governments, we want more commercialising for space companies. So, yeah, I'd say that recognition and necessity is definitely there.
[00:08:51] Dallas: Maybe your strapline should be rocket science, it's not brain surgery. What's your, actually, just to finish off, you know, we work together a lot, we do Space Bar, which is this big, well, is it a podcast? I don't even know what it is. It's like a podcast, but it's a kind of live social that we've done for years and years and it became a bit of a thing, you know, people would join and we'd just talk about all kinds of things. I'm sort of interested, is that kind of public engagement? Did it kind of reverberate beyond Space Bar? Was it useful for you guys? Was it useful for getting people to sort of understand the industry a bit more?
[00:09:22] Daria: Yeah, definitely. We have people joining from outside of the sector and if anyone is talking to me and people discover that I'm in the space industry and they normally say, Oh, wow, I knew nothing and that is a good gateway into the industry for people. I always say, come to the Space Bar and you'll see all the amazing things. So people join, see the feel of the community, which is amazing, hear all those wonderful things that we talk about at Space Bar and they want to learn more. So I've seen those cases happening. So in terms of Space Bar role, I'd say a gateway to the industry. If you haven't heard anything, we definitely say go and check it out and see a good taste of it.
[00:10:03] Dallas: Although we never recorded any Space Bar, we'd only ever do it live. That was the kind of, that was the thing, but maybe that was a mistake.
[00:10:09] Daria: I don't know. I feel that it lets people say what they actually think.
[00:10:13] Dallas: Yes, that's true actually, we'd get some really heated discussions, some industry discussions on it, which were quite fun. I know people, if you are being recorded, people are always slightly more cautious.
[00:10:23] Daria: Yeah. Like I'm now.
[00:10:24] Dallas: Yeah. Hey, Dasha, it's great to see you and great to talk to you. Hopefully I'll see you soon. You do great things up there and it's really great to see the Scottish space industry doing so well and I always think that you guys at Astro Agency are the kind of hub in Scotland and everything kind of emanates from you guys. I know you do amazing things. So congratulations and carry on!
[00:10:45] Daria: Thank you so much. Thanks Dallas for the compliment.
[00:10:48] Dallas: To hear future episodes of In Orbit, don't forget, subscribe on your favourite podcast app, and to find out more about how space is empowering industries in between episodes, you can visit the Catapult website, or you can join them on social media.