Antycip: defence and aerospace simulation marketing

ST Engineering Antycip is a European provider of simulation, virtual reality, visual display and engineering services, founded in 1997. It has offices in France, the UK, Italy and Germany, more than 340 customers and over 100 technology partners.

Its customers include armed forces, defence agencies, prime contractors, aerospace manufacturers, universities and research laboratories. Antycip integrates commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) simulation technology and supports it through the full lifecycle: study and design, software development, installation, training and maintenance.

That mix of hardware, software and services means large buying committees, technical evaluators at every stage and sales cycles measured in quarters. Marketing had to earn trust with engineers and programme managers long before a proposal went out.

Audrey joined Antycip's Oxford office in 2018 as Digital Marketing Manager and was promoted to European Marketing Manager in December 2019. She owned marketing strategy for 15 European countries, led a team of three and managed a six-figure annual budget.

What she delivered:

• Rebrand. Managed and delivered the company rebrand.
• Strategy and budget. Built the marketing plan, growth targets and budget allocation for 15 countries, working with every department.
• HubSpot and Salesforce. Implemented HubSpot as the marketing automation platform, so the team could build custom funnels. Took part in the company-wide Salesforce rollout, so marketing activity could be traced to pipeline and retention.
• Trade shows and events. Organised around 45 events a year across Europe, like the DSEI and IITSEC defence conferences.
• Sales enablement. Delivered technical collateral, PR, SEO, paid advertising and social content in direct support of sales.
• Product launches. Created event and advertising campaigns for new simulation and display products.
• New verticals. Coordinated with in-house sales team to open Antycip to the European construction market, and to the planetarium sector through partnership and targeted account-based marketing.
• Covid-19 response. When the 2020 event calendar collapsed, she quickly deployed a crisis communication plan and adapted lead generation to protect revenue.
• Team. Hired and trained a new team member while managing external partners and agencies.

Antycip sells into several technical markets, each with its own buyers, standards and trust signals. These are the five Audrey worked on most.

Defence and military simulation

Antycip supplies high-fidelity simulation and training systems to armed forces, defence agencies and prime contractors across Europe. Its systems create Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) training environments for land, air, maritime and joint operations.

Use cases run from infantry and vehicle crew training to JTAC coordination, mission rehearsal and command and staff exercises. The technology stack includes Computer Generated Forces (CGF) that populate synthetic environments and stimulate C4I systems, HLA and DIS interoperability with run-time infrastructure (RTI) for distributed and coalition training, vehicle physics for wheeled and tracked platforms, geo-specific terrain, cyber-defence training and after-action review (AAR) displays.

Defence buyers check interoperability, alignment with NATO and national standards, and through-life support before anything else. Every campaign had to speak that language.

Aerospace and space

In aerospace, Antycip's modelling and simulation software supports work from aircraft design to full-scale air traffic control training simulators. The offer covers platform and payload modelling, network design analysis and testing, and real-time terrain visualisation built from GIS source data.

On the space side, specialist software supports satellite design and mission planning: system architecture, trajectory design, orbit determination and subsystem analysis. 3D stereoscopic power walls let engineering teams review complex data together. The audience is aerospace engineers, systems architects, programme managers and research centres.

Simulation and training technology

This is the core of the business. Antycip builds multi-role virtual simulators, real-time image generators, flight simulators and a 3D model library covering fixed-wing, rotary-wing, surface and subsurface platforms.

Around the simulators sit VR systems (CAVEs, collaborative VR, design review), large-format visual displays with multi-projector edge blending, and engineering services from study and design consultancy to installation, training and maintenance. The offer draws on a network of more than 100 technology partners.

Planetariums

With a specialist partner, Antycip delivers turnkey fixed or portable 8K fulldome planetariums: building design, projection screens, theatrical lighting and show content. The real-time space simulation software renders more than 11 million astronomical objects from scientific data, calibrates projectors in about ten minutes and runs from an iPad presenter mode.

Buyers include universities, schools, museums, astronomy associations, 360° cinemas and theme parks. Audrey launched this range as a new line for Antycip and used it to open a route into the planetarium sector.

Engineering and construction

For the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, Antycip provides immersive VR design review, walkthroughs of BIM models on group VR displays and virtual prototyping, so issues are solved before ground is broken. It also supplies heavy-equipment operator training simulators that train whole crews in a safe, controlled environment. Audrey and the sales team opened this market for Antycip in Europe.

Defence and aerospace buyers look for sector fluency before they read a proposal. Audrey has marketed LVC simulation, CGF platforms and satellite mission-planning software to engineers, programme managers and procurement teams in 15 countries.

Pulso Social Marketing brings that experience to mid-sized defence technology, aerospace, simulation and SaaS companies today. The founder you meet is the person doing the work: strategy, HubSpot and CRM, trade show marketing, SEO and paid campaigns.

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