Lee’s Summit Journal – Russ Pulley

Lee’s Summit’s branding has awakened a positive image for residents of the city, according to a recent survey.

While working on a community brand, North Star Destination Strategies conducted a survey in 2011 to assess Lee’s Summit’s image in the region and at home.

Then the firm, stepped away from the project, as the city contracted with the Lee’s Summit Chamber of Commerce to implement the new logo, themes and tag line “Yours Truly.”

James McKenna, the community marketing manager for the Chamber, this spring hired North Star to repeat the survey.

“We wanted to see how far we moved the needle,” McKenna told the Lee’s Summit City Council May 1 making a progress report for the program that ends in June, unless the city extends funding.

North Star has a “Brand Barometer” it compiles to compare results of community images for 200 cities in 40 states, using the surveys it conducts.

North Star says that comparison shows residents’ “passion” for being an advocate for their city.

The Lee’s Summit results blew away North Star consultants.

“The scores Lee’s Summit achieved are not only high annual scores, but the highest scores North Star has ever recorded for each respective category since the creation of the Brand Barometer,” its report said.

Compared to the national average Lee’s Summit respondents were:

7.5 times more likely to advocate the city as a “place to live”

7.2 times more likely to advocate it as a “place to visit”

12.9 times more likely as a “place to conduct business”

In 2011, using the same survey, respondents were only 4 times as likely to make those recommendations, compared to the national average.

The 2014 survey had 1,010 respondents, screened from many more responses with qualifying questions to create a representative sampling of all demographic groups, McKenna said.

Among open-ended questions, the survey asked respondents the first thing that comes to mind when they think of the city.

Responses included key phrases like: family oriented, great quality of life, welcoming community, vibrant downtown, which were the impressions the campaign wanted to promote.