Optimus Rebrand Launch
As Optimus enters its 20th year in business what better time to reveal something special that we've been working on.
The idea of a re-brand began with discussions on how best to sell Optimus to a changing market place and how to engage our people to galvanise their efforts moving out of what has been one of the most un-compromising periods of recent times in Oil and Gas.
How do we communicate what we do, how we do it and who does what? Has our ethos survived the downturn and has it changed? What about a mission statement? Is our website up to scratch? Should we venture into Social Media? Are our people ready to back Optimus as we evolve into a period that may be characterised by “Lower for Longer”?
In March 2018 Director Chris West engaged with local design outfit FortyTwo Studio. This process absolutely wasn’t going to be just a simple case of adding a splash of colour or sprucing up our website, we needed expert advice and importantly an external view of things to ensure that we weren’t being less than critical of ourselves. FortyTwo guided us through a process that got to the real heart of what Optimus are all about – our people, their motivations and their hopes and dreams.
Through interviews, and group sessions, FortyTwo got to know our people and what made them tick, and whilst people had undoubtedly had a hard time it was clear that they were still ready to breathe fire on our behalf. So we distilled the essence of what Optimus fundamentally believes in and pledges to deliver and created something to stand beside and use as a measurement of success. A drum to beat no matter what the weather, our manifesto; a series of promises that we can never compromise on because they are forged from the shared beliefs of our people.
Optimus has always been about making a difference, we used to talk of the “Optimus way”, a way of thinking and behaving that was hard to define but described our unwavering approach to delivering business. Because it was hard to define to anyone who’s not experienced it directly it was something that in the past we shied away from advertising. So we thought how can we express the difference that we have tried to bring to the Energy industry from day 1 of our existence, we wondered whether it was about our personality? But then personality’ is like a mask; not always showing who you truly are. ‘Character’ however is fundamentally different; Character is the true nature of who you are as a person or company, and a new tagline was born:
Engineering with Character.
By now FortyTwo had full Optimus exposure, like a therapist they knew what we were thinking before we were thinking it and they had the courage to challenge us on something that in one form or another has held strong throughout Optimus’ existence, our logo. The strong doric column that characterised the business from its early beginnings was held close to our founding director Ian Bell’s heart….. this was going to be quite the challenge! But courage and momentum are infectious, Optimus’ existence has been one of continual change, we revel in our compact nature, this nimble structure of the company is what has allowed us to flex and move with the industry, for it has surely changed during the last 19 years and no one knows this better than Ian. So reflecting on the green shoots of fresh growth within the industry and especially on our own doorstep, it was time for something fresh, something that signifies the beautiful simplicity of our organisation and what it stands for now and progressing into the next 20 years of our existence.
And to complete the loop our new content was itching to be exposed to the world, a new website was essential and even more so a fresh approach to our profile on Social Media, we want Optimus to be seen in this new era, we’re unapologetically proud of our manifesto promises and the work that we deliver for our clients. We will not back down from our quest to be the engineering company that clients want to work with and people want to work for.
And so here we are now, laid bare - a manifesto, a new strapline, a new logo, a new website and a fresh new start for 2019, we look forward to everything that it brings.