XCOR AEROSPACE: MEDIA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS, COPYWRITING
XCOR Aerospace was a startup aerospace company with headquarters at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California.
Pictured: XCOR Aerospace headquarters, Hangar 61 at the Mojave Air & Space Port.
From 2011-2016, I directed all media, marketing and communications for XCOR Aerospace and the Lynx spacecraft. From development of the full marketing communications strategy, to all media relations with every major print and television outlet in the US, to crisis communications, our team redefined the way the story of space was told.
Work also included tactical implementation of branding elements such as flight suits, conceived by the costume designer of the film Iron Man, and marketing copy, from the screenwriter behind Sully.
Pictured: Trying on a space suit the first day of work.
In those 5 years, I traveled weekly from Chicago to Los Angeles telling—and selling—the XCOR story to our customers, our partners, media outlets, and the public.
Lynx was XCOR’s suborbital spacecraft.
Lynx’s 3 customer types were participants, payload/science mission customers, and wet lease (spaceline) operators.
XCOR’s goal was low-cost spaceflights with reusable spacecraft that could take off and land from the runway, into space and back, multiple times per day.
Like a car. Specifically, a space Corvette.
Pictured: XCOR A&P Derek Nye, at work on the Lynx fuselage.
Key to this goal was the Lynx main engine, which consisted of four 5K-18, kerosene-powered, piston pump-fed rockets.
Pictured: A hot fire of the Lynx 5K-18 main engine.
And of course, XCOR’s end goal was settlement.
Pictured: An illustration of XCOR CEO Jeff Greason’s 2011 ISDC talk: A Strategy for Settlement, made by graphic facilitator and all around genius Gavin Blake.
The initial 6 months at XCOR were trial by fire, and I loved it.
My first week at work, I managed XCOR’s Lynx flight giveaway at San Diego Comic Con with XCOR Chief Test Pilot Rick Searfoss, the Warner Brothers PR team, and the Big Bang Theory cast and producers.
And over the coming 6 months, I managed XCOR Aerospace’s part in a Super Bowl XLVII ad campaign with Unilever, which included a star turn by XCOR Lynx, along with spokesman and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Central to this work was leading the strategy and creative development of media and public relations, and verbal and visual messaging and communication, for marketing campaigns and all forms of promotion and sales, in every medium and type of collateral available.
XCOR’s CEO, Jeff Greason, gave our team a healthy amount of creative latitude.
This also involved ensuring the tone of voice and integrity of the brand were advanced and protected in each interview, event, in our web and social media copy, commercial partnerships, and press releases.
XCOR Marvels at design.
To reflect the stark contrast of design standards between Lynx and its competitors, I procured the services of Laura Jean Shannon, costume designer for Iron Man. She designed XCOR’s flight suits.
Work also required distilling complex concepts into clear and compelling visual stories.
Blogging a Spaceship
As Lynx was being assembled, I proposed a blog to engage our 300 individual flight, payload, and wet lease customers in the process of the Lynx build.
Over this 5 year period I worked as managing editor, roving reporter, and publisher of the XCOR blog. In 55 posts, I covered Lynx spacecraft construction in the Follow the Build series; hot fires, red team, and go fever in the From the Bunker series; and conducted team interviews on a regular basis.
XCOR Blog Posts [more]
Press Releases
I also wrote 39 press releases and worked on a range of press release copy with partners and agencies including NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin (ULA), the US Treasury, and Warner Brothers, among others. Each partner required multiple approvals, whether a government agency or corporate partner. The process often spanned several days, up to several weeks.
Visit the archive here.
When Crisis Strikes
While XCOR structured an agreement to co-brand a sweepstakes promotion with Paramount Pictures for the release of Interstellar, I managed brand negotiations with Paramount, Fandango, and Vice Media, as well as writing microsite and promotional copy.
On the day of the Interstellar film premiere, an XCOR competitor experienced an anomaly with their spacecraft over the Mojave Air & Space Port. Due to the severity of the incident and the industry impact, this moved our own communications team into crisis mode.
At the direction of XCOR’s CEO, I worked around the clock with our communications team, for 4 weeks, to draft and implement a crisis protocol. By implementing our plan, we were able to navigate one of the worst disasters in private aerospace history.
Stakeholder Interviews: Brand Narrative
When I began my journey at XCOR, I wanted to ensure we had the brand structure and narrative aligned with the vision of its founders and team.
To make sure we did, I interviewed over 20 XCOR team members, from the CEO, to pilots, to shop mechanics.
As I progressed, I hoped to discover what XCOR’s founders and employees believed was the essence of XCOR, and how the story ought to be told and sold to customers, partners, and the public.
Dreams. Made. Real.
Once the essence of the brand was documented through deep listening in structured interviews, XCOR hired veteran film director, producer and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki (Sully, Elf) to tell five powerful short stories about the company and its people through five 30-second scripts. In the process, XCOR received several new taglines including We’ve got space for you and Dreams. Made. Real.
Scroll down to read “Jeff Greason’s Walk to Space” and “Desert”, two of the five spots.
These spots and accompanying creative became the verbal and visual foundation for the brand going forward.
“JEFF GREASON’S WALK TO SPACE”
EXT. HANGAR 61 - DUSK
JEFF Greason, silhouetted by the setting sun, exits the hangar and begins to walk onto the flightline.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
At the end of every workday, Jeff Greason takes a walk...
Flash of images. Engines firing, cold flows, pressure tests...
EXT. FLIGHT LINE - CONTINUOUS Jeff walks on.
NARRATOR
From Hangar 61, where he and his team at XCOR Aerospace are building the LYNX aircraft...
FLASH OF IMAGES. The LYNX is quickly assembled. Cockpit to fuselage. Engine to fuselage. Nose onto cockpit.
NARRATOR (CONT’D) All the way to the end of the
Mojave Air and Space port, and back...
The wind picks up and Jeff raises his collar, walks stronger into its force.
INT. HANGAR 61 - CONTINUOUS
Wings are affixed, their unique beauty breathtaking. Final checks. Cockpit. 5K-18’s. All four engines fired.
EXT. FLIGHT LINE - CONTINUOUS Jeff nears the hangar.
NARRATOR
And by the time he returns, thirty
minutes later...
BLUR of images of a LYNX flight. The rise, the crossing of the Karman Line. The stunning view, the desert landing...
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
His LYNX has already gone to outer space and back.
EXT. HANGAR 61 - CONTINUOUS
Colonel SEARFOSS coolly exits the cockpit, a
CUSTOMER descends after him, overwhelmed by what he just experienced 62 miles high.
Jeff arrives and shakes Searfoss’ hand and the Customer’s hand.
JEFF
How was the flight, Colonel?
SEARFOSS
He wants to go up again. (big grin)
So do I.
XCOR AEROSPACE logo flies in.
NARRATOR
XCOR. We’ve got space for you.
The tag line We’ve got space for you means space for you, your payload, your spaceline customers and co-owners, and a friendly, competent tribe that pulls XCOR customers and partners into the innovators’ and heroes’ fold.
“DESERT”
EXT. MOJAVE DESERT - HIGH NOON
The heat shimmers and ghosts just above the surface of the road.
Way too hot for anything to grow.
NARRATOR (V.O.) Temperatures out here in the Mojave
can hit 134 degrees...
EXT. TELESCOPE PEAK - SAME
NARRATOR (V.O.)
And whether you stand 11,000 feet
high in Death Valley National Park...
Joshua trees stand like exclamation marks against the wide, blank sentence of the desert.
EXT. BADWATER - SAME
NARRATOR
Or at Badwater, the lowest point in the United States, one thing is clear. Only the strongest can survive in this crucible...
EXT. HANGARS - CONTINUOUS
The heat shimmer makes Hangar 61 look like a mirage.
NARRATOR
But something impossible is growing
in the middle of all this barren land...
INT. HANGAR 61 - CONTINUOUS
E.C.U. hands working on the intricacies of an unseen machine.
NARRATOR
Born of the imaginations of a handful of fearless dreamers. Who have come to the desert to rewrite the future...
2. EXT. HANGAR - SAME
A white truck tows an unseen aircraft out into the burning sunlight.
NARRATOR
Men and women who believe that what goes up...
Reveal the LYNX, the sunlight glinting off its stunning body, catching flares in its one of a kind windscreen. A work of art.
NARRATOR (CONT’D) Must...keep going up.
XCOR logo flies in on a black and star sky background.
NARRATOR
XCOR AEROSPACE. DREAMS. MADE. REAL.
Dreams. Made. Real. Whether in the daily routine in the shop, onboard a flight, or in the purchase of a ticket, payload mission or spacecraft, the story of XCOR is based on stepping into an adventure, and the seemingly effortless hard work it takes to realize that adventure.
Dreams are revealed step by step, in small moments: of engine tests, of space flights and walks through the space port.
By framing our narrative through simple acts that make dreams real, we emphasize the uplifting aspects of space flight while telegraphing the courage required.
XCOR Brand Strategy
With spots and interviews in hand, I was able to draft and deliver a brand narrative for XCOR [click to read it]. This set out the brand values, messaging strategy, and the verbal and visual tone of the company.
Brand Value: Authenticity
XCOR is an American original, rooted in a history of great design, evolved in the same high desert as the Bell X-1, and the Apollo program. Its people do not flinch from the courage required in their work. They do what they promise, as do their products both inside and outside.
In the design of Lynx, XCOR intentionally projects an air of simplicity and clear function. Looking at Lynx, with its clean lines and minimal design, one immediately knows its purpose.
Brand Value: Courage
XCOR builds and powers spacecraft and the space flight experience, with a team that demonstrates courage through participating in the flight experience before any customer. Whether a customer buys a seat, a slot or a ship, XCOR makes dreams real for each participant and every spacecraft owner by doing it themselves, and first.
Brand Value: Ingenuity
Reusable engines. Unlimited life. Gas and go operations. Discovering the Moore’s Law of space. Opening a new frontier. It’s no accident XCOR is focused on being the most active space flight company in the world: Our technical value is unmatched. XCOR’s ingenuity means evolving spacecraft, and engine design, into the design genius of Lynx, the surrounding technologies inside Lynx, and eventually the spacecraft that will take us to orbit, then to settlement.
Brand Value: Focus
XCOR does one thing, and one thing alone. It builds spacecraft and engines that power them, then delivers space flights for customers. It is the best in design, and its marketing, media and PR initiatives must reflect and serve the same high standards of design discipline found on the inside and outside of Lynx, and every vehicle to come. Unlike Virgin Galactic, its CEO is also its engineer. The team is the product, and the product, the team.
Messaging Strategy
Remain Authentic
Authenticity requires drawing clear associations between what we build (Lynx) and who we are (creators of Lynx, a group of originals that has never been seen before), and the values (and features) that run through XCOR and the creation of Lynx.
By imputing that we are authentic in our brand commitments and that we adhere to our plans, XCOR delivers messages that highlight the fact that we don’t say something different depending on the weather, our moods or the date.
Demonstrate Courage
The story of every journey begins with those willing to take the first step, the first journey.
The story of XCOR is the story of our founders, pilots, investors and customers, and through them we will deliver the XCOR narrative.
Board members and a range of brand ambassadors (trained customers) will also be prepared to consistently deliver the XCOR narrative in person, in media outings and at public and private events.
Reveal Ingenuity
To reveal the unique genius of XCOR’s team, we will highlight the more compelling and fun aspects of our people and product.
For instance, in highlighting the quick turnaround times for Lynx through the thrill of Colonel Rick Searfoss and the customer’s rapid journey to 62 miles above Earth, Jeff Greason’s Walk to Space is both a call-out to our features and benefits (safety, reusability, reliability, etc.), and fun in and of itself.
Emphasize Focus
XCOR is rooted in sound design. At its heart it is an engineering culture.
We don’t sell soda or train rides, hotel experiences or airline tickets.
We build spacecraft and the experiences around that craft.
By emphasizing this difference in focus at every turn, we positively frame our message.
XCOR on Made in America with David Muir
By the time we had our spots and branding documented, we landed on the fact that XCOR could capitalize on being an American original, born in the desert. We then drafted a deck and pitch, went to Manhattan, and pitched David Muir and his team at ABC World News Tonight on a Made in America segment focused on XCOR.
David Muir agreed, and the segment below is the result.
