Visit Cheltenham

The Challenge

Cheltenham has world-famous literary, jazz, science and music festivals. It has the Cotswolds on its doorstep. It has GCHQ. It has Michelin-starred restaurants. It has the Everyman Theatre. It has great shopping. Plus, it’s the most complete Regency town in the UK. However, despite all this, Cheltenham has become known as ‘The Horse Racing Place’. For 16 days of the year, when the racing world is in town, this may be true. However, for the other 349 days of the year, it is most definitely not. And something needed to be done – to stop its visitor economy from stagnating.

The Solution

‘The Festival Town’

LBA began by carrying out a brand strategy consultation with key stakeholders in Cheltenham’s culture, leisure and visitor economy, including representatives from Cheltenham Festivals, Cheltenham Racecourse, Cheltenham BID and Cheltenham Council. What we discovered was that the spirit of Cheltenham has remained the same for 250 years. People originally visited Cheltenham to drink from its healing spring, and to refresh their mind body and soul. Today, people still visit Cheltenham to refresh their mind, body and soul. Only now, the healing waters have been replaced by the town’s refreshing festival vibes. To highlight these festival vibes, we created a logo that reflects the uplifting lighting you experience at festivals and the strong straight lines of our Regency architecture. The logo also acts as a beacon (think Batman’s Bat-Signal) summoning visitors to the town. The core colours of Purple and Gold, are an eye-catching nod to Cheltenham’s regal past and also a celebration of the festival atmosphere which now characterises the town.