Acquisition enables Alterian to provide packaged solutions that will help Customers and Partners to accelerate their Social Media strategies

London, U.K. – 01 September 2010 – Alterian (LSE: ALN), the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, today announced that it has acquired Intrepid, an international market research and social media analytics consultancy. The acquisition further strengthens Alterian's market leadership position in social media marketing, and its application to the mainstream marketing mix.

Intrepid is a consulting business with a heavy focus on providing insights using social media data, enabling social media to be integrated as a core element of mainstream marketing. The company has around 40 staff, and offices in Seattle and London as well as a rapidly growing social media analytics team in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Intrepid is a long standing user of Alterian’s social media monitoring and analytics product, Alterian SM2.

The acquisition of Intrepid allows Alterian to expand its support for clients and partners in the area of social media marketing. Alterian has seen growing demand from brands and partners for packaged social media solutions that include best practices, services and software, delivering benefit even where the partner or brand does not have the in-house staff to use the software and generate insights directly.

Alterian CEO, David Eldridge, commented: "With the explosion of social media, many brands are well aware of the need to harness this exciting new channel as a key and integral part of their marketing mix.  However, a large proportion do not yet have the necessary in-house skills to use social media analytics to best effect.  The addition of Intrepid into the Alterian portfolio gives our partners and customers access to an extremely talented group of people with a deep track record in social media analytics and market research," said Eldridge. "It also strengthens our leadership position in social marketing, one of our fastest-growing areas of the business, as we help marketers address new channels and build engaging dialogues with their customers.”

John Song, founder and CEO of Intrepid, added:
"We believe this acquisition will have a positive effect on all of Alterian’s current business lines and will accelerate our ability to help organizations that know they must move quickly to integrate social marketing into their customer engagement activities, but may not have the necessary resources and methodologies to do so.  Our vision and our company culture align perfectly with Alterian, and we are excited to become part of this fast-growing company."

Acquisition Reflects Growing Demand for Alterian's Social Media Solutions

The Intreprid acquisition reflects the strong and growing demand for Alterian's social media marketing solution, Alterian SM2, and for the social media features that are offered as an integrated component of Alterian's offerings in email marketing, web content management, campaign management, and web behavior analytics.  It also provides, through the Ho Chi Minh team, a rich pool of language skills to help further enhance Alterian’s offerings in the important Asia Pacific region.

Growing demand for Alterian's social media marketing software solutions is driven by increased awareness that consumer expectations have changed forever, based on the emergence of new digital channels and internet-based social media. A new world of communications has emerged that many brands are struggling to understand. Alterian's solutions help marketers to address this challenge. For more information, please visit www.alterian.com/intrepid