With over 1100 animals and nearly half a million visitors a year Twycross Zoo is one of the UK’s major zoos and currently holds the biggest collection of primate species in the world. Following an intensive 5-company pitch Latitude, working in partnership with VLI Ltd, was selected to take on a major online rebranding exercise consisting of 3 separate consumer-oriented websites and a staff training intranet.

Working closely with the zoo’s education and in-house design departments Latitude set about structuring the large amount of visitor and academic information that the website would contain. A lot of attention was also given to optimising user navigation, with intuitive buttons and interfaces that would speak to adults and children alike. The next big challenge for our design team was to create a website template that could be duplicated quickly for use on the zoo’s other initiatives such as Wildpro, an online encyclopaedia for wildlife professionals, Himalaya, the zoo’s new conference and visitor centre, and a brand new staff training intranet.

VLI, one of the UK's fastest growing business technology providers, contracted Latitude with a view of improving their existing brand and marketing structure. Following an initial immersion day at the company's offices and subsequent market research it quickly became apparent that VLI's core product offering, Revolution, was not explained correctly and could potentially be confusing customers. The Revolution product is an extremely powerful online business platform based on flexible, modular functionality. Used by corporates such as iOmega, SAP and CAPITA, it not only provides businesses with a single entity from which their business can be run but also allows them to scale or alter their online requirements as and when they see fit without costly migration or integration issues.

Latitude’s creative team kick-started the project by devising a new visual representation of the product which could instantly show off the platform in its entirety and allows customers to see how easily it can integrate their online requirements. We then re-aligned VLI’s core sales messaging and updated their corporate identity before turning our attention to improving the website.

This was followed by the creation of product microsites, downloadable white papers/case studies and the design of new company and product brochures. With this initial rebrand phase now almost complete we will soon start implementing a new two year marketing strategy which should take VLI to new heights and help to expand their business in the US.

"One of the best things about Latitude's approach is the lack of spin, the abundance of straight talking and no-nonsense advice driven by a team whose only goal is wanting to help you succeed. 

They took full responsibility for visualising brand and design concepts which brought the ideas to life in a way which exceeded our expectations.  From this starting point they have continued to work with us to drive down into details, providing a rare combination of high level vision and day to day commitment - in equal measure. I couldn't be happier with the investments we have made with Latitude and would go so far as to say they have become a critical part in our overall growth strategy."

Entrepreneurs World is a networking group for business owners of companies that turn over in excess of £1M a year. Regular meetings allow members to exchange ideas, seek and provide support and encourages them to speak with other entrepreneurs who have made a real impact within the UK business community.

EW’s existing brand image did not quite exude the high level of professionalism the company itself stands for and the group’s managing director was finding it hard to attract new members. Latitude were asked to refresh the brand but were set with a hugely challenging time scale of just a month. The rebrand had to include a new logo, stationery, website and sales materials so our creative team had to crack the brief almost instantly in order to deliver and launch the rebrand on time.

The new logo was simplified and the bright purple and gold colours that the existing brand used were toned down and replaced to a more subtle gold and grey for a classier and more understated appearance.  A new, temporary website with better, more structured navigation was designed and built

with a view to slowly expand it over the following two years before moving it onto a content management system. Whilst the new website was under construction we created a new set of sign-up forms, stationery and other promotional materials.

Within a year of the rebrand memberships had doubled and corporate partnerships had quadrupled. Latitude have continued to work alongside Entrepreneurs World ever since and are about to start work on a two year marketing strategy that should see EW attract 100 new high net worth members.

"We have been delighted with the results and were extremely impressed by the speed of response, sensitivity to our issues, interpretation of the brief and quality of output that their team provided us. We are continuing to work with them regarding on-going development and expansion of our site and marketing activities, and can wholeheartedly recommend Latitude to anyone who needs personal service and a can-do attitude to their web and marketing activities"

 

New Frontiers are market leaders in the Travel Recruitment industry and have been nominated yearly for Best Recruitment Agency by Travel Weekly and Travel Bulletin since 2000. But although the company’s size and reputation for excellence has grown exponentially over the years, their brand image has remained largely the same since the company started up in 1993 and is now in need of refreshment.

Because of their great reputation and position in the market New Frontiers were naturally a bit reluctant to rush into a complete change of image and Latitude were asked to start the process slowly by redesigning the company’s services brochure first. The idea was that the brochure would provide a relatively risk-free and cost effective way to judge customer response. If the response were positive then it would provide us with a great base on which to build the new brand. But more importantly, if it were negative the brochure could be ditched straight away with little harm done to the overall brand.

The travel industry is a very vibrant and exciting sector and we felt that this needed to come across in the brochure immediately. At the same time, we believed the company needed to be set apart from their competitors so we decided not to go along the more traditional route of using travel photography and opted for an altogether different approach. We contracted an illustrator to create a set of fun, colourful images and characters that would instantly stand out and would appeal to New Frontiers’ predominantly female customer base.

Although the brochure has only just been printed and sent out the overwhelming positive feedback from their clients has been fantastic and we’re now looking at slowly developing New Frontier’s brand image over the next year.

Livos Energy provides clean, renewable energy using state of the art, modern wind turbines. The company had booked an exhibition stand at the Anglesey Agricultural Showground 2011 with a view of encouraging farmers to register and have their land surveyed for wind farming potential. Latitude were asked to come up with a range of ideas that could be used on pull up banners, posters and leaflets and would entice farmers to come on to the stand and have chat to the sales reps.  

Wind turbines only take up a relatively tiny amount of land but can provide the landowner with a very handsome profit so we decided that the best way to get this concept across was to talk to the farmer in a language that they understand instantly: the amount of livestock they would have to rear (which of course requires a lot of hard graft and land) to earn the equivalent of hosting just a single turbine. 

The ideas proved to work and Livos received 75 requests for land surveys. And although the majority of these surveys still have to be carried out, 15 farm plots are already in the process of undergoing planning permission. Should turbines be placed on these plots alone it would represent an approximate annual profit of £3M, guaranteed for the next 20 years. 

Pierre Lemond is an exclusive photography studio based in Old Street, London. They offer clients a 5-star day out experience which includes professional make-up, hair styling, a full complimentary drinks selection and of course photography by industry professionals.

The studio had been running a Facebook competition aimed at 16-24 year old girls with a view of creating brand recognition, future word of mouth referrals and additional revenue through the sale of photographs. The competition offered girls the chance to win a free, professional fashion photo-shoot for themselves and a friend or partner. The studio would provide their usual 5 star experience for free and would only charge a reasonable fee to have the final photographs printed off.

Over time the campaign results had started to slow down and Pierre Lemond approached Latitude with a bid to revitalise the campaign and improve results. The first thing we did was

to split the campaign concept over 4 different target markets to increase sales potential across a wider audience and to gauge where the most bookings were actually made. These markets now included Fashion, Glamour, Mature and Men/Gay. We updated the Facebook ads, competition entry pages and email designs for each category, focussing on new sales messaging and design. Within 4 months of the campaign going live the studio had received over 1000 bookings, a 22% increase on the previous campaign. We’re now looking at fine-tuning the strategy even further.

"I’m impressed by Latitude Solution's efficient and precise business insight. We appointed them to launch a new innovative on-line marketing campaign aimed specifically at our target audience. They designed the strategy, helped build the infrastructure and supported us throughout the entire process. Within four months we saw a 22% client increase and our average customer sales spend rose as a result!”

APT are one of the country’s leading specialists in industrial cleaning and chemicals. Based in Wales, they offer their services nationwide to clients such as Holiday Inn, BUPA, NHS and Corus. The company suffered from a very outdated brand image that no longer worked for their size or market position and Latitude were asked to realign the company’s sales messaging and rebrand the company across all interactive touch points.

APT also wished to communicate the fact that they try to take an environmentally friendly approach to industrial cleaning and aim to reduce the impact their products and services may have on the environment as much as possible.

In light of this the existing logo was updated and the previously little used green colours that the brand had adopted were reintroduced and brightened up to create a more contemporary look. We then designed a new set of stationery and focused on redesigning the company’s vehicle branding to make their vans far more eye catching to potential clients. This was followed by a new website, company product and service brochures, sales materials and new product labeling.

"Not only are Latitude good at their job, they're a delight to work with. They focus on taking the pain away from your marketing, leaving you free to run your business."