Bid is as valid today as the day it was set up – believes new boss

The original motivation for setting up Sunderland Bid is as valid today as it was when the idea was first floated, believes Sharon.

But she accepts it has not always delivered on its promise.

“What I do think we have to do is concentrate on delivering some of the things we had in the business plan initially, that we absolutely said we would do, that potentially we have not delivered so far,” she said. The priorities are still 100 per cent valid, which is great - how we deliver them might slightly change.

“For me, if you look at the engagement with the traders, the levy-payers and non-levy payers, I think some of that needs to be tightened up and improved.”

One of the areas Sharon has identified is the Bid’s branding and visibility. The ‘Experience it here’ slogan is being retained, but the logo has been redesigned, with a bolder red colour: “What we’re NOT doing is move away from ’Experience it here,’ said Sharon.

“We’re just going to try to explain it slightly differently and bring it to life in a different way, so it’s about what you can do when you’re here and we’ll be picking out lots of good images.

“We had quite a confused brand, it blended in with an awful lot of other brands out there and it was very difficult to use from the marketeers’ point of view.

“So what we said was, can we just strip it right back, can we simplify the whole thing so that it is easy to use, easy to understand and very recognisable, very joined up, very visible?

“I do think people forget what the Bid is involved in and how much stuff the Bid actually does because it is not visible enough.

“We’ve evolved it. We’re not changing what we believe or what we’re about, but actually how we present it is much more simple.

“We looked at the colours, looked at red and just thought ‘why would we not?’ - just plain red and white.”

The Echo revealed this week that the Bid has created a ‘pop-up city centre’ a shipping container which will open up to highlight a vast range of things the city centre has to offer.

It will make its debut at the airshow this weekend, before taking up residence in the city centre and occasionally being taken on the road.