Elon Buys Twitter

Hi everyone! I'm Ari Lewis, the cofounder of Payload. Welcome to the fourth edition of "Marketing From Space," my monthly newsletter on storytelling, comms, and PR in the aerospace industry. In this month's edition...

• My thoughts on Elon buying Twitter (I'll be brief, I promise)

• A Q+A with Wyvern's Adam Brown

• Seven space marketing jobs

• Three articles to help you do your job better

Before diving in...some company updates on the Payload front: Our flagship newsletter now sits north of 11,800 subscribers. Pathfinder, our podcast, has an average audience size of 1,000+ per episode, and Parallax, our weekly science newsletter, just crossed 1,000 subs.

Finally, since the last edition of Marketing From Space, Payload has announced ad deals with AWS, Spire, BofA, Kepler, Deloitte, Velo3D, JobsOhio, and Spaced Ventures. If you're interested in reaching the Payload audience, let's chat.

Now, on to the main business...

Ari's View from Space

Today, I'd like to talk about Elon Musk.

Not Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and technoking of Tesla...but Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter. Last month, Musk closed on his acquisition of Twitter. I'm still unsure of what his plan is.

Two things that seem certain are that he wants to rely less on advertisers...and advertisers don't want to rely on Twitter. The feelings are mutual?

If you want to buy an electric car, Tesla is almost surely your go-to choice. Same goes for launching something into space and SpaceX. But if you want to buy an ad, Twitter is definitely not your first choice. It's probably not even in your top 10 choices.

Why is that? One theory I'd posit: If you're an advertiser, why would you want to advertise on a platform where your ad might be next to hate speech? Why would you want to be on a platform where even your organic content might be next to hate speech?

So what's a marketer to do?

Well, putting myself in the shoes of the lion's share of advertisers, I'm pausing paid spend and continuing to post organic content. Twitter might not be the go-to place for advertisers, but it's still the go-to place for news. I hope that doesn't change.

To paraphrase Maximus Decimus Meridius (aka Russell Crowe in Rome), "There was a dream that was Twitter, it should be realized."

+ What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree? Any other feedback? Reply to this email and drop me a line about what you're thinking.

Profile of the Month

Name: Adam BrownTitle: Strategic Initiatives Lead @ WyvernContact: Email + LinkedIn

What is one item you'd take to space?Well, as a recently married man, I’d have to say my wedding ring or a picture of my wife. But those are small enough to sneak on, so I’ll imagine those will come with me either way.

So, maybe I’d add a portable keyboard packed with tons of sounds. I assume this would be for a long journey, possibly to establish humanity on a new planet like Mars. Being trapped in a small space on a long trip, I think the power of music would help keep me sane and grounded.

And if we were off to establish human life on another planet, I’d want to bring along some of the nuanced beauty of humanity, as I find it hard to imagine human life existing in the universe without the joy of music.

Your title is "strategic initiatives lead" at Wyvern. What does that entail?When I joined Wyvern, I got to take a look at the company and think: what’s missing? They were growing fast, had key contracts, tons of momentum, and no lack of brilliant scientists and engineers.

The opportunity I sought to fill, in a broad sense, has been more around how Wyvern is presenting themselves and engaging the world. And that has mainly focused my efforts around communications, marketing, and sales.

High-resolution hyperspectral data from space hasn’t really been accessible before. So everything is new and exciting, yet perhaps a bit mysterious for some prospects. Working to package up this new category of space data in the most compelling way has been an amazing journey.

Before joining Wyvern, you actually ran for office. What was the origin story behind that? How did it go for you?Yes, I ran for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2021 federal election in my home town of Edmonton, Alberta. For our international friends, that means if I had won I would have been in parliament under Justin Trudeau, and it was essentially like running as a democrat in Texas.

It was a bold move, but I’ve always wanted to serve my country. After enduring pandemic politics and seeing a lack of representation for the younger generation, I just thought there had to be a better way. It was a life-changing experience and truly fascinating to see democracy in action at the ground level.

Funny enough, Wyvern was a part of my messaging in that campaign before I had even considered joining the company. Alberta is an oil and gas-driven economy, and not many people know about the incredible technology in our own backyard. I like to point to Wyvern as an example of what’s possible here and what our future can look like.

Fun fact, you were also formerly a craft beer consultant. How did you start down that path? What should the audience know about craft beer?

That started while I was finishing up my MBA. Alongside my business background, I was a touring musician in a decently successful band called Striker. We opened for Metallica and won a Juno among some other fun things.

We were playing a show at a craft brewery, and I was chit-chatting with the manager about the business, when he described a real problem: they didn’t know how much it cost them to produce their beer! So I convinced him to let me solve that problem for them, which turned into a few fun years working on other projects as they built out a new and very successful company.

I guess a fun fact is that one of the perks is having a 50L keg of beer in my kitchen, on tap and ready to pour at a moment's notice! But I’d say business is business, and there’s more similarities between craft beer and satellite imaging than most people would expect.

Wyvern is doing paid search. What was the motivation behind that and how has it performed for you?An astute observation! There’s no question that a lot of this industry is relationship- and network-driven, so it’s hard to say we’re hoping to drive major revenue through paid search today or tomorrow.

At this stage, it’s been more experimental. But it's helped us look at our customer journey in a new light. We also recognize that hyperspectral data is a newer concept for some people, so making sure that they can learn about its benefits quickly and easily is important to us.

One thing I’d say is that the Wyvern dream is to make high-quality remote-sensing products both affordable and accessible, and to make the whole process as seamless as possible. So it will be interesting to see how things play out as we continue to scale up.

What is one marketing initiative that you have worked on at Wyvern that has been successful and why?I’d likely have to point to our tradeshow push over the past several months, and everything that has stemmed from that. It has meant elevating our branding and messaging, and helped push us to create a range of assets for several industries to better share the Wyvern story and illuminate how remote hyperspectral imaging is improving their world.

Beyond that, meeting prospects face-to-face has been essential to understand where they are coming from, which continues to inform our marketing strategy. It also helps get customers in the door, so it's a win-win!

If I could add anything to that, it would be hiring Rebecca Smyth, our communications specialist, who has really helped push our internal marketing capabilities to the next level.

+ While we're here: Wyvern recently raised $7M in new funding—check out Payload's coverage of the round.

Curated Space Jobs

• Senior Marketing Manager @ Orbit Fab

• Senior Growth Marketing Manager @ Near Space Labs

• Senior Marketing Manager @ Space Perspective

• Marketing Communications Manager @ National Security Space Association

• Director, Internal Communications @ Relativity

• Integrated Marketing Manager @ ALL.SPACE

• Marketing Operations Specialist @ Ursa Major

Ari's Top Links

• Airbnb's Says Its Focus on Brand Marketing Instead of Search Is Working—Everyone is focused on KPIs, but when you over-obsess over performance, you sometimes forget the core of marketing—telling good stories. airbnb did that and its business soared.

• Are We Past Peak Newsletter?—Is the newsletter business dying? Or is it? Note that this story has been written, and this headline trotted out, for probably the last five years and counting.

• NYC's new law reveals what top companies are paying—New York City's new salary transparency law will change employer branding and how companies recruit. Candidates will expect salary upfront and it won't just be about brand and culture.

Final Thoughts

Thanks to everyone who attended our marketing meetup at AIAA Ascend in Las Vegas. It was wonderful to put so many names to faces. I plan to host more meetups over the next year, so be on the lookout for announcements soon.

As always, I'd really love to hear with you. Please email me with feedback, constructive criticism, or just to say hi. Your input really helps me iterate and make this a better experience for everyone. If you have anything to contribute, such as a job, link, interview, or article, email me and I'll work on including it in the next edition.