Update: This version of the story includes more detail on BILT's plans for its next step.

A team charged with developing a brand identity for the Wilmington area has decided to delay final discussions until it knows more about corollary initiatives.

At its meeting Friday morning, the Branding Initiative Leadership Team (BILT) reviewed its current thinking and ideas it has generated – agreeing to suspend further efforts until the final version of the Garner Report is published, and until the team knows more about a branding initiative underway by the State of North Carolina, called the Brand N.C. Project.

Although no specific date was set for its next meeting, BILT plans to reconvene soon to discuss next steps and how they may relate to other initiatives, according to sources at University of North Carolina Wilmington, under whose aegis the branding initiative was launched.

“The bottom line is we’ve had fruitful discussions about how to proceed, prior to nailing down our ideas,” said Thom Porter, chairman of UNCW's Department of Marketing and a BILT facilitator. “We don’t want to go too far before we get some insight about the leanings of the North Carolina branding effort.”

Jay Garner, president and founder of Atlanta-based Garner Economics, was commissioned by New Hanover County to study economic development opportunities for the county. He will meet with area officials in a public meeting April 2 to deliver the final report.

A draft version, which has circulated locally in the past couple of weeks, made a variety of recommendations as to the kinds of industries the county should try to attract and how it should position itself.

BILT members said that they wanted to ensure that any branding message they developed would align with the county’s efforts in that regard and would also be in sync with a state brand.

Some BILT members will try to attend a meeting of the Brand N.C. Project in Raleigh in the near future.