Altia, A Creative Partnership

True partnership, creative collaboration, problem-solving, high-impact actions helping to transform a company into the top international brand for its sector.

Founded in 2004, Altia Solutions, are a Glasgow-based software company helping financial investigators increase the productivity, efficiency and accuracy of their investigations.

When we began working together, they had around 10 staff, a strong national presence and were selling 4 key products.

We were asked to help bring some visual appeal to their brand, software products, etc. This is Altia, a Creative Partnership.

Altia Product Software Branding – cutting-edge creative, real visual appeal and a tremendous explainer for what the software does. Also invaluable in helping with tight deadlines, etc.

A brand winning hearts and minds both inside and outside the organisation, after proposing several alternatives, the Altia team were delighted to maintain the ‘Wee Man,’ logo which was promptly brought up-to-date.

Powerful words, the loft carried out strategic work as part of the overall branding process, and although the tagline above wasn’t used, it had real value for the company internally and also for ourselves.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“In developing the product branding, the loft talked with all the staff and came up with individual product brand designs that reflect the differing properties of the software yet are linked in their overall theme. We are very pleased with the result and proudly include them on all information sent out for the company.”

Ian Watson, Managing Director of Altia Solutions

Customer-benefit campaigns, after various re-brands, we worked with the Altia team to create a series of new campaigns. The post cards above were to inform potential customers of the tangible benefits of their software products.

Pro-active sales, marketing and customer-service. We ensured Altia were regularly communicating with their customers at every stage. Whether this was with digital or print, as a sales communication or something more geared toward customer service.

Increasing sales through exceptional service, email campaigns introducing existing users to one new software feature a week. This was in response to a survey which showed that many operators were only using 15-20% of their software packages. A tremendous increase in overall customer satisfaction and an unsurprising bounce in license renewals followed, read the full case-study >>>

Cutting-edge creativity, campaigns generally focused on showcasing product benefits to users and buyers alike. (In this case, we exploded the Altia sub-brands for real visual impact.) Every time, we ensured visuals were of the highest quality to improve brand reputation.

A website update, there was no part of the Altia brand that wasn’t updated in one way or another with the new product and company brands. Campaigns were also the order of the day to increase sales.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“We’ve been collaborating with the loft for more than a year and in that time I’ve been mightily impressed, first and foremost with their enthusiasm and desire to understand our business. An easy option would have been to deal with the initial job in isolation, complete it quickly, and move on to another but Benedetto and his team instantly saw the bigger picture and opted not for the quick and easy choice but the more challenging. Their willingness to challenge themselves and push the boundaries shines through in the physical work the loft have produced for us.

From a total company and product rebranding exercise to more subtle marketing campaigns the material produced by the loft always surprises and delights me and consistently supports my teams activities to drive sales. Working from the ground up and engaging everyone at Altia, the entire team at the loft have built a strong understanding of our business which they apply to new projects, subsequently presenting the end product remarkably quickly and accurately. Long may our collaboration with The Loft continue.”

Paul Miller, Sales Manager of Altia Solutions

In addition to the focus on retention, and serving existing customers exceptionally, the incredibly effective Altia sales staff were continuing to win new customers each and every day. The product brochure above played an invaluable part in this, helping customers gain an understanding on what the software did and how it could help them. Achieved pre-dominantly by sharing sophisticated graphics.

Altia Learning, showcasing boldness and brand consistency for these training materials.

Saving time and meeting tight deadlines, to showcase ideas in a fast and easy way – the loft team would regularly sketch out various concepts giving Altia staff a visual to use during meetings. (An important part of this brand marketing case-study for software companies)

An outstanding brand extension, Altia were able to show a real and lasting commitment to the law-enforcement sector with The Serious and Organised Crime Exchange (SOCEX.) A new initiative and series of events conceived by the Altia management team to bring together key individuals and thought-leaders from the law-enforcement community, academia, etc. The loft was responsible for all aspects of brand creation.

Professional and powerful brand communications. The brand we created with Altia for SOCEX was inspired by the ideas of connectivity and bringing people together. The loft managed the brand and produced all brand communications for the conference in the 4 years.

Making a splash while truly engaging, we also created a wide range of communications to support Altia at various SOCEX conferences. Most notably, the bespoke Altia Times newspapers were a great hit with senior police officers, etc.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“SOCEX, Serious and Organised Crime Exchange. As a concept, the Conference title can spring up many images — whether coming from the dark world of blockbuster thrillers or gritty police dramas on TV. The loft managed to capture the seriousness of the subject matter being discussed across the two day conference while providing a document which will have a life long after the conference itself, capturing the core elements of the event in such a way that attendees and their colleagues will return to it as a vivid reminder of what took place.”

Martin Jack, Managing Director of Think Different Events and Co-Founder of SOCEX

“When Altia decided to develop and be the lead sponsor of the ’SOCEX 2015’ conference and the 10th Annual ‘Keith Hughes Awards,’ The loft worked closely with us and the event management company to produce the unique branding for each of the events. They delivered excellent work within tight tight deadlines and the results were commented on very favourably by man of the attendees. The branding is being used for the 2016 events and I have no hesitation in recommending the loft to deliver innovative and interesting designs.”

Ian Watson, Co-Founder of SOCEX

Re-branding ABM Intelligence, in 2016 Altia acquired ABM Intelligence and eventually merged both companies. As a result, the loft re-branded all of ABM Intelligence’s key communications in line with the Altia brand. New ABM Intelligence logo above.

Creating a more harmonious merger, the loft helped bring both companies together with a series of individual then collective culture exercises. A tremendous project helping to bring people together, clarify sales messages and also put a framework in place for operations, recruitment policies, etc. (Important to include in this brand marketing case-study for software companies.)

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“The loft helped us to create a new brand after our merger in 2016. They went to great lengths to talk to everybody in the company, they were always responsive with changes and both the identity and cultural aspects of the new brand have been a great help to us in re-posiitoning the organisation and getting our message across. We very much enjoyed working with them, highly recommended.”

Paul Hardman, Business Relationship Manager of ABM Intelligence

A new truly global brand and looking like one, all associated company and product brands were re-styled for maximum consistency.

Brand successions, some of the final activities we carried out for the now Altia-ABM Group (recently re-branded back to Altia) were stakeholder-friendly brand guideline documents. These showcased not just the rules for the brand but how the rules can be applied in a practical sense. (An important part of this brand marketing case-study for software companies.)

The loft worked with Altia from 2013 to 2020, the company was sold in 2021.

Real partnership, we were delighted our staff were able to form such close friendships with the entire Altia team while working together. Loft Founder Benedetto and Altia Managing Director and Co-Founder Ian Watson (now retired) remain good friends.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“Over the past 10 or so years we have worked together on several important projects for Altia Solutions. From a completly new identity for both the company and the software products to working closely with me in developing the SOCEX brand. I´ve always found Benedetto to be receptive to our ideas and always delivers new and exciting design concepts from a revitalised on-line presence through to conference collateral materials, printed brochures and product infographics. This work has helped to create a group brand image that is now part of the company’s culture and this has definitely helped in our world-wide growth. He is good fun to work with but always very serious about his creative work.”

Ian Watson, Founder/Managing Director of Altia Solutions, Founding Partner of SOCEX & CEO of Altia-ABM

For our academic friends, thanks for reading our brand marketing case-study for software companies. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.