New CompliantCloud branding, solidifies Odyssey VC’s position as a global leader of digitally compliant solutions for life sciences.

How TOTEM empowered Odyssey VC’s brand success story.

Covid was the spark that ignited a whole new way of being and doing business, for Odyssey VC. The spark that led to them approaching meaningful branding agency, TOTEM, and embarking on a process of restructuring, repositioning and refreshing their brands.

We spoke to Pauline O’Riordan, Odyssey VC’s Product Manager, about their journey and the recent launch of their new CompliantCloud website.

“Basically, COVID shone a light on Odyssey and how we operated. Our main business at the time was quite a physical business, in that we offered digital compliance services to the pharmaceutical industry – which meant putting people on site, with clients.

But more than that, when we stepped back and looked at it, we realised we also developed our business in a very face to face, relationship led manner.

Covid shut all that down – that ability to interface physically with people, that we’d so heavily relied on. It highlighted a need to pivot and really accelerate our digital business and product offering.”

Odyssey VC - industry leaders for next generation life sciences. TOTEM.

A journey of discovery

When Odyssey first approached TOTEM, they’d already been on quite a journey of discovery internally. They’d conducted a robust internal and external strategic market review, supported by Enterprise Ireland. Asking some tough questions of themselves.

TOTEM’s brief was to take those insights and help them distil and translate them out to consumers, with an update of the Odyssey VC website. And a refresh of the branding and website for their digital product offering – CompliantCloud.

A global game-changer, CompliantCloud offered an innovative, fully qualified, cloud infrastructure that specifically met the complex compliance needs of the highly regulated life sciences sector.

But Pauline recalls, how quite quickly after appointing TOTEM, they realised they weren’t quite done with asking themselves the tough questions yet. As TOTEM guided them through a series of workshops to help them identify where their brands should strategically be positioned in the market. Their unique proposition, in a nutshell.

“The brand workshop process with TOTEM allowed us to share all the insights we’d gathered around the problems we existed to solve, who we existed to serve and where we saw ourselves in the future.

And then take them a step further. Their approach very much focuses on empathising with your end-user, and they allowed us to relook at ourselves with fresh eyes – from the outside in.

Their process gave us the space and tools to condense all our insights. And it also shone on a light on the fact that our brand challenge was at a much more fundamental level”

Finding the right structure

One of the key elements that came out of these initial brand positioning workshops, was that their Brand Architecture was not fit for purpose. And needed to be relooked at, before moving forward.

Colin Byrne, creative MD with TOTEM, explains how,

“Your brand, in the simplest terms, is your reputation. And when it came to developing the Odyssey VC brand we were starting from a phenomenal position. They already had an incredible reputation as the experts and leaders for digital compliance in the life science sector. They just needed help telling that story.

The bigger challenge was the way they had structured their brands. With their key product – CompliantCloud – segmented as a standalone brand, relatively unconnected from the parent service business. 

Which, when we delved into it and looked from their customers point of view, meant a lost opportunity to really leverage the incredible equity that existed within the Odyssey VC parent brand.”

Pauline explained how initially they had thought those who would engage their services and buy their product were two quite different people. But actually, that was no longer the case.

“When we asked what the essence of the development of the product was – it was the embedded knowledge and expertise that was in the business already as a service arm.

TOTEM helped us refresh the Odyssey VC brand and messaging, and let us relaunch CompliantCloud, firmly in its rightful place as a product, allowing us to fully leverage the reputation we had as a service business.

And the whole process has given us that clarity and understanding that any intelligence we deliver in a digital solution going forward – really its credibility will come from the decades of knowledge we have on how to solve complex compliance problems on the services side.”

Compliant Cloud and Odyssey VC

Positioned for global success

Odyssey VC first launched a refresh of their main website in Q.4 2021, streamlining what they do into 15 key service solutions – each addressing a core customer need.

Then, most recently, in March 2022 they relaunched their CompliantCloud website and brand. With a new logo, tone of voice and messaging. Reflecting on the launches and brand refreshes Pauline said,

“I think one of the biggest things it’s given us as a team is an incredible sense of confidence and excitement about who we are, what we are doing as a company and what we can accomplish in the future. An absolute belief in our vision and what we can make possible for the life sciences industry.

Not just for Irish based players, but ones globally. With opportunities to expand easily into markets our previous ways of working would have prevented – like Europe, America and Japan.”

For Colin and all the TOTEM team, this was one of the most exciting projects they took on in 2021. As its impacts could be so far reaching.

“At TOTEM we exist to create success stories. And empower ambitious organisations, like Odyssey VC, to achieve their dreams. 

This project was extra special for us, because it wasn’t just about transforming their brands. It was about empowering them, to digitally transform a whole industry. An industry that is so integral to all of our futures.”

Key words of advice

Finally, we asked Pauline, if she’d any advice for someone thinking of embarking on a similar journey.

“For me, it’s about committing to the work. There is a really defined, structured and achievable process to branding. And as long as you are willing to ask yourselves some very tough questions – you will get that clarity you are looking for.”

And on a similar note, Colin wanted to reassure anyone thinking about rebranding,

“The branding process is not something to fear. You’re not expected to have any answers going into it. And it’s not something many people will have gone through – which is why we are there to guide teams every step of the way.

More than any learnt technical skills its qualities like openness, honesty and empathy that make branding projects like this, a success.”

 

 

Colin Byrne Creative Director of TOTEM and Oisin Curran CEO of Odyssey VC

Above: Colin Byrne, Creative Director of TOTEM (left), with Oisín Curran, CEO of OdysseyVC.