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With the help of community partners, Wells County Economic Development has unveiled its new logo and tagline: “Live Better. Live Wells.”

The brand is “designed to attract individuals to live and work in Wells County,” Economic Development Director Chad Kline said in announcing Thursday’s 20-minute webinar, which served as the campaign launch. It’s also “designed for businesses in Wells County to utilize for their talent recruitment efforts through uses of a logo, tagline, and future marketing materials.”

Several sponsors financially supported the campaign, including the City of Bluffton and the Wells County Commissioners. The brand was developed through Britton Marketing and Design Group of Fort Wayne, staffers of which helped Kline with Thursday’s announcement.

During its work, a focus group determined nine aligned values for Wells County: community, family, togetherness, safety, spirituality, pride, proximity, affordability and tradition.

The personality attributes identified in Wells County residents included caring, dedicated, purposeful and proud. Emotional attributes included comradery and empowerment.

“There’s something special and unique about small town America,” Seth Slone of Britton Marketing and Design Group said.

One excerpt from the focus group that Slone said Britton Group found insightful dealt with the county’s “pace of life.”

“Wells County is a place where you can choose what pace of life you want to have,” Slone read from a participant. “High gear if you want to make things happen. Low if you want to take it easy and go with the flow.”

Danielle Hartmann, of Britton Marketing and Design Group, noted the logo infuses colors — such as greens and brown — that can be found in an aerial photo of the county’s landscape. The logo can be adapted to fit the needs of various industries and businesses across the county.

She also spoke to the meaning of the tagline.

“Many midwesterners have a specific idea of what it means to live well, whether that sense of wellness is centered around physical health, land ownership, professional success or a happy home life (or all of the above),” read a slide in the presentation. “In Wells County, we know that all of these things are possible.”

Kline said other assets to support the brand include a new website in the works that will focus on employment, recreation and education; videos that promote the county’s attractions; “aggressive marketing” efforts; and the ability for local businesses to use the logo that was developed.

One video was released Thursday during the announcement and can be viewed at: bit.ly/3qD0flp

Kline said they are excited about the brand and hope the community is too.

“But it takes a community to be able to get this brand out there. We hope that you’ll share it,” Kline told those watching the webinar. “We hope that you will talk about our community in a positive way so that we can portray a positive picture out there to other people that are interested in moving into our community. We have to grow our workforce. We need to grow our communities. We want to continue business investment and we want to support our local industry and local small businesses.

“To do that,” he said, “we need people.”

You can view the full presentation of the brand launch here: https://vimeo.com/505288004

Story by Jessica Bricker, Courtesy of the News-Banner