MyBeartown's own bear

How it all began 

In September 2008, The Congleton Business Group Marketing Team was formed, with the prime objective ‘ to develop a distinctive brand image for Congleton’. The team, chaired By Dawn Gibbins, has now grown to include 12 passionate volunteers with many skills and attributes, all contributing to the aptly named BEAR Team, Beartown, Enrich, Awaken, Revive. The Mission ‘ to make Congleton a proud, happy, healthy and prosperous community that people love to work, rest and play in’.

The Team now meets monthly to progress many exciting projects that can help achieve their mission.

The Team Launches the Beartown Re-Branding Strategy

To encourage tourism, business development and a better lifestyle for young and old, the Team identified that Congleton needed to enhance its local and national distinctiveness, making Congleton unique to other towns and raising its profile as a Cheshire Town.

The team, consulted, commissioned, reviewed and finally completed a brand audit with the outcome that the bear was a key image for the Town through both the history and the fact that various local Companies had already adopted the Bear and the beartown name.

Consequently, a creative brief was drawn up and briefed out to 6 local agencies, out of these, 3 presented back their proposals. The preferred options were presented to the Town Council and the Regeneration Partnership and the Brand, ‘Congleton Beartown’, with the signature line, ‘where friends are made’, was born. The Creation of the logo was the culmination of combined work by Andy Swinson from ASG Creative Communications  and Ian Turnock from Designworks, both from Congleton and with a passion for improving the image of the Town.

	Simon Brown

As part of the Regeneration Strategy, a Lifestyle Review of Congleton was also carried out. This was completed by Simon Brown who adopted Feng Shui principles to analyse the good and bad elements of the Town which are all summarized in his report.

Mr Brown - who has worked with major companies including British Airways and the Body Shop – revealed his findings at Congleton Town Hall on November 18.

Click to download his report

Although developing a brand for Congleton is mainly a project to enhance tourism, grow business and generate external awareness of the Town Centre, it is also seen as a useful social tool in bringing local people together. Having received the continuous feedback that Congleton needs to ‘badge’ itself as a distinctive town, so a strategy was developed to promote this.

Since the re-branding was announced, the BEAR Team have been busy creating the Beartown Brand Manual, building the Web Site, designing the bear character and generally spreading the word about the Bear. Through the schools they have organised stories about the bear and these will be featured in a beautifully illustrated book, to be published and available in 2010.