Somaspace officially presented its first scientific paper at the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2025), held in Sydney (29 Sep–3 Oct 2025). Titled “Neuromarketing in space deep tech: leveraging emotional and cognitive responses to accelerate tech adoption”, the presented paper highlighted the work developed in collaboration with AIKO and BrainSigns, focusing on a central challenge for space and deep-tech companies: adoption often slows down when communication is technically correct but cognitively heavy, hard to follow, or unable to create confidence quickly.

The paper explores how neuromarketing can help close this gap by measuring real cognitive and emotional responses to different communication styles, going beyond opinions and self-reported preference, to understand what truly drives attention, engagement, and decision-making.

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From technical pitch to storytelling: the core experiment

The study compared two versions of the same sales pitch: the original product-focus presentation versus a revised version built on a narrative structure and storytelling principles. The goal was not to simplify the technology into hype, but to reorganize the story so the audience can immediately understand the context, the problem, and why the solution matters — before diving into features.

In the storytelling version, the pitch followed a clear progression: it opened with a contextual hook, framed the problem through operational insight, positioned the solution in a recognizable category, revealed the product with clear benefits supported by data, strengthened credibility with a case study, and made the solution tangible through a short demo, ending with a clear invitation to engage.

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Measuring engagement with neuromarketing tools

To evaluate impact, the research combined neuromarketing and behavioral assessment methods, including EEG, skin response and heart-rate measures, eye-tracking, and a post-viewing questionnaire. The results support a key direction for deep-tech communication: narrative-driven structures can increase engagement and direct attention more effectively than purely technical delivery, helping complex solutions become easier to process and evaluate.

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Why this matters for the space sector

As the space industry grows and competition increases, teams need more than “good technology”: they need communication that accelerates understanding, supports trust, and makes adoption easier for investors, partners, and customers. This publication is part of Somaspace’s commitment to bringing scientific validation into strategic communication, with practical implications for pitches, websites, sales narratives, and go-to-market messaging.

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The full paper is available

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About our partners

BrainSigns is an innovative SME and Sapienza University of Rome spin-off specialized in Industrial Neuroscience applications. It measures cognitive and emotional reactions through neurophysiological data to improve communication effectiveness, user experience, and decision-making processes.

https://www.brainsigns.com/it/

AIKO is a deep-tech company developing AI-driven solutions for satellite autonomy and operations. In this study, AIKO provided the sales pitch material used as the experimental stimulus and collaborated in developing and recording the storytelling-based pitch version for comparison.

https://www.aikospace.com/

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