Case Study: Pixotope
Visualising the Future
Pixotope Technologies is a dynamic young company at the very heart of a newly emerging segment of the entertainment market, virtual production. With the industry itself in a state of seemingly permanent turbulence, this made the assignment an unusually complex but exciting piece of work, with multiple threads and facets to analyse. Futurecurve was able to generate not only a value proposition with value themes for Pixotope’s sales and marketing messaging, ensuring that the right messages are delivered to the right people in the customer buying process, but also provided a road map for the company’s market positioning.
Situation
A pioneering mixed reality software company, Pixotope’s visual storytelling tools have reached audiences of millions worldwide, most recently during major sporting events such as the Super Bowl. In just a few short years, the company has transitioned from dynamic start-up to industry leader providing an open software-based solution to create virtual studios, augmented reality (AR), and on-air graphics.
The industry is transforming. Spurred by the demands of a fast-changing market, accelerated by audiences hungry for new forms of entertainment, the worlds of broadcasters, film producers, live events organisers and video gaming studios are rapidly converging. To grasp the opportunities these changes present and prepare for the inevitable challenges, Pixotope needed to know why customers were buying mixed reality (MR) technology and, in particular, why they were buying it from Pixotope. Realising that the best way to find answers to these questions was to engage in a value proposition project, newly appointed Chief Revenue Officer, David Dowling asked Futurecurve to investigate.
Activity
Before embarking on the project, Futurecurve needed to understand the vision and ambition of Pixotope’s CEO, Marcus Brodersen, understanding what the value proposition needs to do for the business. Futurecurve then deployed its Value Proposition Builder™ process, diving deep into the market in which Pixotope operates and the customers it serves. This proved to be a critical part of the work.
Starting with the ‘outside-in’, a series of in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted in local languages with Pixotope customers in Europe, Asia and the United States, asking about the value of their experiences with the company. The interviews generated detailed insights into Pixotope’s areas of value and areas for further development.
The second stage of this ‘outside-in’ phase was the gathering of competitor intelligence. In this rapidly developing market, there are a growing number of competitors in the augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed media space. Futurecurve analysed the market messages of all Pixotope’s key competitors.
Moving to the ‘inside-out’ perspective, Futurecurve then undertook detailed internal interviews with senior executives whose open and helpful input contributed to the project’s positive outcome and was followed by a working session with CEO, Marcus Blom Brodersen and Chief Revenue Officer, David Dowling, to understand Pixotope’s go-to-market challenges.
Outcome
David Dowling comments, ‘Futurecurve’s huge strength is their ability to take on board a highly complex industry and a highly complex set of people who are buying, and to be able to distil that and understand it in such a short space of time. And that was truly impressive.’ He added, ‘It helped us realise that we are good at what we do, and to be proud of what we do.’
Today, the company’s value proposition informs all its customer communications, creating focus and alignment across all go-to-market channels, from social media to webinars, based on the huge amount of data and analysis provided by Futurecurve. VP of Marketing, Ben Davenport comments, ‘One thing that they really helped me with personally is talking about building the Pixotope brand. The value proposition is a key part of that, with the other parts being our vision, mission and our company values, market positioning and our personality. Futurecurve delivered part of that, and the other good thing they did is raise awareness within the organisation that we really need to have all six of those building blocks in place to go forward building the brand.’
“I really liked the professionalism of Futurecurve. They embraced what we were doing and caught on very quickly to the fact that this is a really exciting part of the industry. I think they fell a bit in love with it. And there’s nothing more appealing than someone who shares your passion.”