Case Study: ActivTrades

The Objective

Form were approached by Alessandro Gho, Commercial Director of Activtrades after being aware of our work for Saxo Bank UK. The company, although having achieved great things up until this point, were aware that they would need to adjust their strategy and approach to tackle the far more financially savvy and competitive UK market. To make an impact in this key sector they needed to go head to head with heavyweights such as IG Index, CMC Markets, Saxo bank, City Index and others who all operated on a multimillion marketing budget.


After initial consultation with the board at Activtrades we agreed on an aggressive strategy to introduce a new brand style and multi-channel advertising plan. This was to be backed up with a new website with greater user experience and one which new users could find help and tips easily 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The ultimate aim was to ensure that users could trade with complete confidence and security. The resulting brand style and messaging were then to be rolled out across all marketing channels, brochures and nationwide advertising campaigns in a very short space of time.

With in-depth experience of this market, Form are aware that the financial markets (whether retail or institutional) are extremely crowded, where companies are competing for the same clientele often with the same offerings and platforms. Therefore our goal was to ensure that the brand and messaging was memorable amongst the noise, purveyed a professional and competent tone, showed an advantage to the user and complied to FCA regulation.

The Results

Working closely with the client we came up with 3 initial directions to be considered, all with their own individual merits. Once presented it was immediately clear which design style would be tailored to move forward with. It was visually unique to the market and stayed away from the clichés which have saturated the industry in recent times. It was important to have a brand which enabled scope and continuity as the initial consumer messaging needed cohesion of look whilst promoting a diversity of USP. The brand roll out was synchronized with a new website, a London focused press advertising campaign and nationwide online campaigns via all main financial retail websites.


The second phase of the brand roll out involved product specific advertising complimented by a very successful Reward Programme which Activtrades promoted. Other forms of media used to promote Activtrades through this growth period were TV slots, Google Adwords, promotional videos and PR. In addition to this a very successful range of free seminars were introduced to educate inexperienced investors on the advantages and risks of online trading.


To date we continue to work with the in-house creative team at Activtrades as an advisory company.