QUIXANT
As the top gaming tech firm rebrands, we spoke with chief commercial officer Duncan Faithfull about the hows and whys of the project
Casino International: So Quixant has changed its corporate branding – why? Duncan Faithfull: The last two years has been an interesting time for the gaming industry. We sell our products to the game manufacturer who then sells to casinos, so the end market was closed. This gave us some time to look at how we prepare ourselves coming out of this in a good way. We did two things: first of all we looked at our core product range and what is applicable to the market as we come out of this. Secondly, the branding was 10 years old and reflected a time when our business was very different, we wanted it to reflect the products and services we were now selling. We wanted it to be more reflective of a technology-based business. But also, if you look at our Group brand identity, we wanted to differentiate ourselves from other businesses in our Group of companies to show that we were relevant, technology-led and fighting for what the gaming industry will be coming out of all of this.
CI: What is it about the new branding that says everything you want to say? DF: First of all, our brand identity is largely based around the ‘Q’ in Quixant. If you look at our marketing activity since we launched in 2005, the Quixant name and colour has always been what comes to mind for our customers. We wanted to make more of the orange, if you look at our logo at the moment it is black with an orange swoosh. Second of all, we wanted the type face to be more modern. We wanted it to be vibrant and relevant to the industry which I think it now is, but also it makes more of that ‘Q’. As we start hanging more and more of our marketing messages across different mediums e.g., social media channels, our marketing is getting more intense in that sector. We want to make more of that ‘Q’ and the orange, and what it means to our customers. If you talk to our customers, they will say reliant, innovative, real cutting-edge technology in the industry. The orange in that ‘Q’ comes to mind so we wanted to make more of that.
CI: During the period the industry was effectively closed, what have you been developing? DF: First of all, we’ve been working on our core business. We’ve released three ranges of products, all based around different performance at different price points in the market. Knowing that as people come out of this their needs may change; we’ve had to create product solutions that hit different price points and are accessible to all the different markets we sell to. We have a value proposition, a mid-range, and then a high-end for the ultimate gaming experience. From a hardware point of view, we’ve created products that are really relevant to the market. Secondly, we’ve updated and
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developed some of our software tools so all of our hardware platforms come with our software hub, which are tools embedded in the system that our customers can use. It comes as part of the package so they haven’t got to go and buy a video decoder separately, for example, meaning it is cost effective and already on that product for them. Thirdly, we’ve created a range of cabinet solutions. Coming out of this pandemic, we think there will be a requirement for a full turnkey cabinet solution. Game manufacturers will be able to focus on making brilliant games, and buy a fully populated ready-to-go cabinet to put their games on and sell to casinos. So, we’ve upgraded our current portfolio of products, invested in the software part of our business, and a created an exciting cabinet proposition that we’re going to market with now.
CI: Does that exist as a sector already – the ready-to-go cabinet? DF: Pre-pandemic? No. Post-pandemic, a lot of the people we’re talking to about this have changed their businesses internally quite dramatically. A lot of companies re- structured going through the pandemic, but the key to coming out of this is we want game studios and manufacturers to focus on brilliant games. This isn’t something that all of our customers will use, but it would be suited to those in the route markets or the up-and-coming markets, for example Brazil. Game manufacturers need a ready-to-go solution where they can put all their brain power into the IP around the game. They can take our cabinet solution which is fully populated with monitors, bill acceptors, etc, and they can put their game on it and it can run. The cabinets look really cool, they’re at an accessible price point, and for the right partnership it will work really well. It won’t work for everyone, but we believe that the route markets will be looking for this sort of solution, based on the conversations we’ve had so far, it has gone down really well. If you look at all the constituent parts of a cabinet, managing the supply chains of all those elements that go into a fully-populated cabinet right now is really challenging. We know that as well as anyone, if you want to try and manage a business in the components market in the far-east, that is particularly challenging at the moment. A lot of the people we’re talking to are saying we don’t want to spend our time doing that, we’d rather outsource that to somebody else who is an expert at dealing with the far-east markets in terms of components, which we have been since inception.
CI: Your core product is the gaming board, the cabinet’s beating heart; what have been the evolutions in boards, efficiencies you have been able to introduce that stand out?
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