Case Study
Loss Prevention Company Expands from 7 Cities to 33 Cities with New Brand Platform
Marketing Strategy
Branding
Website Design
Content and Creative
Thought Leadership
Public Relations
The Scribewise Go-To-Market Foundation for ALTO
- Clarified a complex, human-centered loss prevention model into a single, outcome-focused story
- Positioned ALTO as a credible connector across stakeholders
- Built early U.S. credibility through timely earned media tied to real-world outcomes
- Enabled sales conversations with clearer messaging, a rebuilt pitch deck and aligned collateral
- Stood up a scalable platform—thought leadership, PR, website—to support expansion
- Helped ALTO transition from startup-style experimentation to focused, sales-ready growth
ALTO entered the United States with a proven global model for addressing organized retail crime, but without a clear way to explain it to American retailers. Scribewise helped ALTO clarify its story, build early credibility in a volatile market and lay the groundwork for expanding from seven to 33 cities in three years.
The Situation: A Proven Global Model That Didn’t Fit a U.S. Category
ALTO was not a startup in the traditional sense. The Chile-based loss prevention company had more than a decade of experience operating across South America and select European markets, where its model—coordinating retailers, law enforcement, prosecutors and community stakeholders—was well understood and effective.
The U.S. loss prevention market is narrow and insular. Retailers are accustomed to investing in security guards, cameras and software and to thinking about theft primarily as a shrinkage problem. ALTO’s approach didn’t fit neatly into that framework.
As ALTO began piloting with major U.S. retailers, they found that their model worked, but explaining it demanded more time and nuance than most enterprise sales conversations allow.
ALTO had momentum. What they lacked was a clear, credible story for the U.S. market.
The Challenge: Complexity, Credibility and No Time To Slow Down
ALTO faced several challenges at once:
Category Confusion
Even internally, the company’s offerings were difficult to describe succinctly. That lack of clarity carried into sales conversations, where the distinction between ALTO, the ALTO Alliance (its coordinated network of retailers, law enforcement and prosecutors) and various subcomponents blurred, making it harder for retailers to understand what they were buying and why it mattered.
Credibility
ALTO was well respected internationally, but U.S. retailers were hesitant to trust a model that felt unfamiliar and was led by a company headquartered abroad. Local validation mattered, and it needed to happen quickly.
Urgency
Retail theft was dominating headlines in cities like San Francisco, with viral incidents putting retailers, prosecutors and law enforcement under national scrutiny. ALTO couldn’t pause sales or market activity to “figure out” its brand. Any work to clarify the story had to happen while the business kept moving.
Shifting the Story From How to Why
Scribewise’s role wasn’t to simplify ALTO’s model by stripping away its complexity. It was to translate that complexity into a story retailers could immediately understand and trust.
Early discovery revealed a core issue:
ALTO spent too much time explaining how it worked and not enough time articulating what outcomes it delivered. The value wasn’t the app. It wasn’t the reporting workflow. It wasn’t even the individual partnerships.
The value was that ALTO acted as the connective tissue—bringing together retailers, local law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys and community organizations in a way no single stakeholder could do alone. Once that insight was clear, the story became easier to tell.
This shift from process to outcomes became the foundation for everything that followed.
Building the Program: Clarity Without Killing Momentum
Scribewise’s work unfolded on two tracks simultaneously: building a durable strategic foundation while supporting active, in-market sales and visibility needs.
Establishing Credibility Early (While the Market Was Watching)
Early in the relationship, a highly visible retail theft case in San Francisco went viral nationally, creating an immediate test of how ALTO’s model would be understood publicly.
Scribewise wrote and placed an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle that reframed the narrative from outrage and finger-pointing to evidence-based prosecution and coordinated response. The piece demonstrated how ALTO’s model functions in practice across retailers, law enforcement and prosecutors.
That early visibility established credibility at a critical moment, positioning ALTO as a serious participant in the U.S. retail crime conversation.
Clarifying the Story and Standing Up the Platform
At the same time, Scribewise led a deeper articulation and alignment effort to clarify what ALTO actually was—and was not. This included:
- Refreshing the brand story and verbal identity
- Updating the elevator pitch and key messages
- Rebuilding the Mission, Vision and Values
- Creating new brand guidelines
- Developing a U.S.-specific go-to-market plan to support retailer adoption and scale
Internally, these efforts helped align leadership and sales around a single, consistent story. Externally, it made ALTO easier to understand and to trust.
With the narrative clarified, Scribewise helped ALTO put the necessary platform in place to support scale. This included:
- A library of thought leadership content
- Media relations tied to real-world outcomes
- Sales collateral designed for national conversations
- An animated explainer video
- A redesigned website that fostered trust with retailers
The goal was never dependency. It was to stand ALTO up with a system they could sustain internally, which they ultimately did.
“What sets [Scribewise] apart is their blend of storytelling expertise and strategic alignment with our business goals.” – Constanza Trebilcock, Director of Marketing at ALTO
The Alto Website
The Results: Focus, Credibility and Scalable Growth
ALTO’s growth was driven by many factors, but Scribewise’s work helped create the clarity and credibility needed to scale.
From 2020 to 2023, ALTO expanded from seven pilot programs to a comprehensive presence in 33 cities across the U.S. Sales conversations shifted away from lengthy process explanations and toward clear discussions of outcomes. Retailers no longer had to work to understand what ALTO did or why it mattered.
What had once felt like a startup pulled in too many directions became a focused organization with a coherent story and a credible national presence in the U.S. market.
Results:
- Expansion from seven to 33 U.S. cities in three years
- A clearer, outcome-focused sales narrative that reduced confusion around ALTO’s model
- Early national visibility through earned media tied to real-world outcomes, including placement in the San Francisco Chronicle
- A focused, sales-ready platform (messaging, collateral, website) to support continued national scale
What’s Next: Scaling With Clarity in a Complex Category
Today, ALTO operates throughout the U.S. with a model that retailers understand and trust. The company no longer has to reintroduce itself in every conversation; it builds on a clear, credible foundation.
For Scribewise, the engagement reflects a familiar pattern: helping expertise-driven companies find their voice without losing what makes them different, and doing so without slowing the business down.
In categories where nuance matters and trust is hard-earned, clarity isn’t a branding exercise. It’s a growth lever.