A new brand strategy, which positions our destination with a lifestyle brand, and the supporting sundial visual identity will allow the region's point of difference to shine through.

The visual identity is the look and feel used to implement the brand strategy.

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council endorsed the brand strategy and supported the sundial as the preferred visual identity concept.

A report to the October council meeting said as a lifestyle brand, we would not only focus on destination/tourism experiences, but have the ability to share stories from across our region about our way of life as a means of engaging visitors and potential visitors.

A lifestyle brand also offers the opportunity to use brand in contexts beyond the visitor experience such as investment attraction, local produce branding and more.

The mayor and councillors were presented with two visual identity concepts - the sundial and the timeline. They favoured the sundial.

Cr Geoff Hawkins praised the co-design approach taken to develop the new destination brand.

"I think it is going to help differentiate our local government area and everything that we have in it from all the other local government areas that go up and down the coast and it is going to do this in a very sustainable and intelligent, and I think innovative way, and will do wonderful things for our area and our community," Cr Hawkins said.

Chief executive officer Dr Clare Allen told the meeting the sundial concept could be consistently applied across the region and better supported the concept design strategy which was around the indulgence of time.

The sundial takes the central feature in this concept.

Dr Allen said sundials noted the passage of the sun through the sky and were therefore a link between the sun and the earth.

She said Port Macquarie-Hastings Council could be that link through which this concept could be shown to the rest of the world, and we could be the link, so the sundial, that attracted people to our region.

"So can you imagine that this concept as a sundial, you basically can showcase every part of the region from morning to the evening, and it has very consistent applications," Dr Allen said.

Mayor Peta Pinson said the sundial concept was the most powerful and would resonate with more people.

"The slices of the sundial are slices of the experience that you can have in our region," she said.

Cr Pinson described the result of the destination brand review as a future-focused, mature offering for our community and tourists alike.

Cr Rob Turner said: "The brand strategy is really clever and it does position Port Macquarie-Hastings differently to pretty much every beachside coastal holiday area up and down the coast and for that I think we are going to have an enormous advantage."

And while he preferred the timeline concept, Cr Turner supported the sundial concept after hearing the discussion as he said the differences were relatively minor and the concept would get a lot more traction if they were all on board.

The council engaged the services of the Destination Marketing Store and Swell Design Group to conduct an extensive research and stakeholder engagement process to review the destination consumer-facing visitor brand and develop the new destination brand strategy and visual identity for the Port Macquarie-Hastings region.

The council thanked all stakeholders who participated in the destination brand review.

Stakeholder and industry engagement was critical in all stages of the project.

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