Hawke's Bay Rebranded - To "Hawke's Bay"

The region's new tourism brand has cut straight to the chase - Hawke's Bay Wine Country is now simply "Hawke's Bay".

The new brand, which retains the existing sunrise image, and the blue, orange and yellow colours, was unveiled to council representatives and tourism stakeholders today.

It follows a three-month review of the Hawke's Bay Wine Country brand, looking at visitor responses and consultations with all sectors of the local tourism industry.

The brand update was led by Hawke's Bay Tourism's chairman George Hickton and general manager Annie Dundas.

"We have a major task to raise the awareness and attractiveness of the region to domestic and international travellers," Mr Hickton said.

"As a starting point we need to be consistent about the region's brand and the way we use it in our promotional campaigns. This is simply updating our image but retaining the core attributes of sun and lifestyle while adding a compelling promotional message for our target markets."

The architect of the brand is advertising consultant Kim Thorp, who said the revamped image was a merger of all previous branding exercises - and something which would remain consistent.

"You don't want to keep starting and stopping and re-inventing things.