In its early days in the 80s (or 1980s for millennials), Olympe quickly felt the need to equip itself with the tools it needed to make itself known and present its offering to the companies and institutions where the young firm wished to implement its services.
Armed with a magnificent corporate brochure, founding president Pierre Audet and his modest sales team criss-crossed Quebec, convincing a number of decision-makers to set up wellness programs and raise health and safety awareness among their staff.
Innovative was the approach that very few tools existed to support the implementation of such programs. So, the small Olympe team set about developing and producing its own materials, from basic forms and training program templates to exercise charters and other awareness-raising tools, using whatever resources were at hand!
Parenthesis: Who remembers the Rubylith?
However, there was no question of the founding president stopping there. Determined to promote healthy lifestyle habits to as many workers as possible, he needed a way to get the message across to all types of businesses, whatever their size or the resources they had available to raise awareness. That’s when she came up with the idea of creating Olympe’s signature educational leaflet, a monthly publication in which each issue deals, in a few lines, in a playful way and with an original visual, with a subject related to health, safety or wellness.
Such was the success of the Olympe educational leaflet that it was soon joined by the poster and various complementary products, including frames and dispensers, and the animation kit. The latter contained everything needed to enable a person to lead an awareness-raising activity without the need for specific qualifications.
350 ! That’s the number of Olympe educational leaflet titles published since its creation.
Creating needs
It didn’t take long for the quality, originality and, above all, the distinctive signature of Olympe products to catch the attention of several customers, who then wanted to call on the creativity of the Olympe team to create tools to meet their specific needs.
This is how Olympe came to create tailor-made communication tools, adapted to the needs and culture of client companies. Prevention manuals, various guides and reminders, internal newsletters, posters, performance indicator charts, visual signatures and even mascots – yes, mascots, some of which have even come to life!
Some tools and documents have even had to be produced in various languages, including Chinese, for customers whose activities extend beyond our borders.
To keep up with demand, Olympe even had to create a full-fledged communications department!
From an in-house function to a leading department
Over the years and with increasingly diversified mandates, corporate communications has become a key component of Olympe’s service offering, providing a wide range of services such as graphic design, awareness campaigns, signage, content writing and illustration.
By Hervé Charbonneau