LEWISTON — A group hoping to help rebrand the Twin Cities and find a successor to the “It’s Happening Here” campaign should release results of a image survey in the next few weeks.

Hillary Dow, a member of the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce’s Regional Image Committee, said the survey was taken by nearly 700 people around Maine asking them their impressions of Lewiston-Auburn and of the “It’s Happening Here” slogan.

“We are in the final stages of writing an executive summary,” she said. “We will definitely be releasing it by the first part of September. So, it’s soon, we are working with scorecards and doing some strategic planning.”

The survey was open for nearly four months this spring.

“We are taking what many communities have done, a community branding process,” she said. “The first phase is figuring out and writing a status report, where we stand now. The next phase is to go to the cities and have some intense communication to really uncover what their priorities are.”

Dow said she expects discussions with the Auburn and Lewiston city councils to begin later this fall. The committee will also begin looking for a marketing firm that specializes in community branding efforts. They will use the survey results, combined with public input, to create a new Twin Cities logo and to craft a new campaign to help elevate the way Lewiston-Auburn is perceived around Maine.

“We are more than willing to and anticipate having our effort finding private sector financial support,” she said. “We don’t want this to just be a process where we go to both cities and give them our research and recommendations. We’ve made sure we have great support from the business community all along.”

The “It’s Happening Here” campaign debuted in 2003, part of an effort to spread the word around Maine about events and programs in the Twin Cities and buff Lewiston-Auburn’s image at home and around the state. Committee members say it has brought the community more than $1 million in publicity.

Lewiston’s councilors said last week that they wanted to work with the branding effort.

“On the Auburn side, we know it’s supposed to be on their agenda within the next month or two,” Dow said. “So we are all pretty much on the same timing now.”

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