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If you go down to Congleton…

Creating a strong brand for a town helps it stand out from other pleasant market towns.

But for a brand to work, public buy-in is essential – it has to make sense to local people and become part of the fabric of the town.

Volunteers in Congleton, Cheshire set up a marketing group tasked with enhancing the town’s distinctiveness, and raising its profile.

After research, consultation and a brand audit they hit on the theme: ‘Congleton Beartown – where friends are made’. The bear image has historical connotations and various local companies had already adopted the bear and the beartown name.

Valuing your volunteers

Congleton’s marketing team draws on local volunteer professionals. Parts of the project involved volunteers developing skills – such as understanding trademarks, getting permissions and sponsorship for lamp post banners, organising public events and helping with website development.

So far the project has largely been delivered through volunteer time, donations and joined-up thinking. Congleton Town Council has supported the project in cash and kind and £2,000 of South East Cheshire Enterprise marketing funding has assisted with the website and banner costs. There has also been good support from local businesses – 20 local companies sponsored banners at £50 each.

Building the Beartown brand

Developing a brand is important and in Congleton discussions have been held with planners, regeneration and grounds teams about building in associations with bears in public realm work wherever possible – the town’s market is considering rebranding to Beartown Market and there are plans to publish a Beartown story book and to create a Beartown bear and other merchandise. Profits from these products will be reinvested in other products to promote Beartown.

In the past year a ‘Beartown Fitness Centre’ and an Indian Takeaway ‘Beartown Spices’ have opened. Between 20 and 30 companies and organisations are trading on the Beartown name – and many sports clubs use the bear as a mascot. The aim is to provide a toolkit for more associations and companies to use the bear.

Congleton Beartown was winner of the Business and Economy category of the North West Market Towns Awards.

What next?

• Join Action for Market Towns for access to our valuable database of case studies (including a detailed study of this Award-winning project and contacts), policy and practice research, and much more (AMT members read full case study here)
• Find out more about the Action for Market Towns Awards
• Share tips on working with volunteers in the AMT Forum