SuperGraphics - Planning Nets Olympic Payoff

Publish Date: November 2004

With the world watching, the Organizing Committee in Salt Lake was determined to transform their city into an Olympic community. As a full service digital graphics provider, SuperGraphics was successful in making those dreams come true despite weather and installation challenges. In overcoming these obstacles, the company was the only graphics contractor to finish without changing the initial completion date.

A privately owned subsidiary of GM Nameplate Canada Corp., SuperGraphics believes that if you can see it, they can create it. From billboards to fleet graphics, retail interiors, construction hoardings and movie props, they are equipped to implement an organization’s advertising needs anywhere in Canada and the U.S.A.

Credited with the invention of the now-common bus wrap, SuperGraphics USA is located in Seattle, where a sales team forwards orders to the Surrey location for large format graphics production requiring a 16-foot wide printer. “It’s the only one of its kind in British Columbia, which allows the company to explore new graphic possibilities," says David Woodman, General Manager. Using this technology, SuperGraphics contributed more than $150,000 in graphic materials to the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation.

The Seattle office made a detailed presentation to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee more than a year in advance to qualify as a graphics provider. This led to a successful bid on portions of the graphics program, regarded as the "most graphically illustrated Games in Olympic history." The result? SuperGraphics USA/Canada was the single largest provider of graphics products to the 2002 Winter Games.

"Every day was a surprise," says Woodman, describing the Salt Lake City experience as "frantic and demanding, yet creating new respect for the company nationally and internationally." In only two months, SuperGraphics produced 12,000 reflective directional signs, 100 printed table skirts, 50 media backdrops, 135 bus wraps and fascias for various venues.

The Winter Games work, however, comprised only 10 per cent of SuperGraphics’ revenues that year. The venture was a low margin project that required a lot of hard work with a potential for priceless credibility and worldwide exposure. Following the 2002 Games, the Surrey facility enjoyed a substantial revenue boost in a traditionally slow period. Woodman advises businesses against over-investment, or developing an entire business plan on servicing one event. He also suggests partnering where it makes sense.

"When the program is over, the company will need to be able to service its debt and pay its bills based on business as usual and responsible growth,” Woodman concludes. That being said, SuperGraphics plans include expansion and staff recruitment, while contacting the 2010 players to let them know the company would be pleased to be involved in the Vancouver-Whistler Games. Just as the Olympic Games illuminate extraordinary athletic achievement despite grueling obstacles, the imagination of the SuperGraphics team show the world that graphic possibilities are truly endless.

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