Project
Nurturing Technology Company to Full Potential
Altum provides industry-leading grants and performance management solutions to philanthropic and government organizations, who work hard every day to make our world a better place. Altum’s clients grant money to ideas and projects that propel biomedical research, build security, restore our environment and improve quality of life.
Substance151 was originally engaged by Altum to transform their existing brand, sharpen their message and to make their marketing communications better aligned with the company's culture, values and strategic goals. Since 2008, we’ve been managing Altum’s brand across all applications and mediums.
Analytic Thinking
Altum came to Substance151 with a clearly defined objective: to better align their website with the company culture and its business goals. Upon analyzing the current brand and Altum’s corporate personality, Substance151 immediately recognized the mismatch. It was not enough to simply revamp the existing website – the brand itself required refinement.
In sync with the altruistic nature of its clients, Altum itself was committed to giving back and had one of the most robust corporate responsibility programs in the region. Even the dictionary definition of “Altum” means to nourish, cherish, support, sustain, maintain, nurture.
Yet Altum’s existing brand communications did nothing to reveal Altum’s heart-centered culture or even acknowledge the good works and high ideals of its clients.
Strategic Thinking
Substance151 recommended addressing the incongruity by defining a more meaningful brand position based on Altum’s name, audiences and corporate culture. In essence, to allow the audiences to see beyond the immediate benefits of Altum’s technologies to the grander, more far-reaching possibilities.
Taking key stakeholders through our brand strategy and platform development process, we developed a unique positioning for Altum by building on the company name, its audiences and corporate culture.
Creative Thinking
This brand repositioning exercise resulted in the new tagline: Altum. Nurturing What’s Possible.
Leveraging the new position, Substance151 developed a design and messaging system that replaced the dry, technical conversation about the software itself with a discussion about endless possibilities available to Altum’s clients. The new branding not only allowed Altum to relate to its audiences in a meaningful, relevant and human way, but also to finally express its true self.
Sustained Thinking
Substance151 has managed Altum’s brand since 2008, and is proud to be a respected player at the company’s strategic table. In strengthening its position, Altum continually looks to Substance151 for new creative ideas and strategies that enable the company to continue increasing its market share.
Inspiring Change
In observing Altum’s extraordinary efforts in the area of corporate social responsibility, Substance151 initiated a conversation with the leadership team about the need to align the company’s marketing practices with its corporate values. We recommended that Altum only use environmentally responsible printing vendors and techniques and follow other sustainable marketing practices.
“Substance151 is the strategy and design firm you want on your team! They are excellent at what they do and extremely responsive. We initially came to them because we needed a new website, but we also wanted to convey the strength of the Altum brand across all of our marketing materials. Substance151 created a unified voice for our company, translating that into a sales-focused web site, product campaigns, tradeshow materials and more. We now have the marketing foundation to effectively and powerfully communicate Altum’s brand to our target audiences.”
—Steve Pinchotti, CEO, Altum, Inc.