RBA

About Remuera Business Association

The role of the Remuera Business Association is to promote the interests of its members within the Business Improvement District (BID) area. This includes representing the Remuera shopping centre as a desirable place to visit, shop, work and invest in. This will positively affect the community and provide residents with a strong sense of belonging and pride in the Remuera village.

Remuera’s Business Improvement District is made up of approximately 200 members including retailers, infrastructure businesses i.e. banks, travel agents, accountants, lawyers, dentists, and landlords. Membership is automatic for every business within the Remuera Business Association BID area.

The Business Improvement District/Mainstreet programme is an initiative through Local Government and is set up to promote economic, social, environmental and cultural wellbeing. These programmes are managed at a local level because those involved in their community are well practiced at advocating their local needs. It also allows all interested parties within the area to create effective partnerships with their own council.

Remuera - Take another look

Have you looked at Remuera lately? I have and it has been a very interesting and rather exciting experience.

Last year the Remuera Business Association went out to its stakeholders including businesses, politicians, community groups and customers and asked them a whole host of questions about their suburb.

The findings were interesting and indicated that our community is very strong. There is a great sense of pride in Remuera and the people who live work and play in the area are what make us unique. Our community is our greatest asset and it is something you would be hard pressed to find in many suburbs of Auckland.

We also discovered that we need to do more for our stakeholders and we received a clear message that they want to see Remuera move with the times and deliver to their needs.

The Remuera Business Association took on board all the findings of the research and earlier this year engaged Strategy Design and Advertising to help us work on a new look for our branding.

Our Remuera story is about the contrast and discoveries that make this stylish suburb who we are today and we want to share this story with the rest of New Zealand.

Laura Carr
Manager Remuera Business Association

Coming up with the brand

Text by Strategy Design and Advertising

We were fortunate when approached to look at re-branding Remuera. We looked at it from an outsider’s point of view. While suburb loyal we’ve always been interested or even slightly envious of this supposed inaccessible suburb for the wealthy, upper middle class. After all what could interest someone who lives in Mt Albert, Piha or Mt Eden in Remuera?

So we walked the streets, lots of them. We photographed the houses, businesses, the people and spoke to many of the residents of Remuera and many from surrounding suburbs. We were most interested in what made this suburb the envy or maybe gripe of many.

Remuera is quite beautiful with well-established homes that house some of New Zealand’s current leaders. We also met retirees, younger residents with families and young children, teenagers, and those who had left home, travelled and now returned from overseas to live with their families in a safe community focused suburb in Auckland.

It became very clear that Remuera is far more than private schools, European cars and large homes in tree lined streets. It’s a vibrant caring, friendly, genuine community, with retailers who own their own businesses, offering friendly meaningful service.

Remuera people have no pretence of who they are, or preconceptions about those who don’t live there either, it’s a community of hospitable friendly New Zealanders whom we would all be proud to aspire to as the fabric of good New Zealand.

So how do you design around that?

Photography provided the base to design a new brand for Remuera.

The images we captured, when shown - amazed the people of Remuera. They allowed them to look back at themselves, and see what we first saw when we started our research.

From terracotta roofs, leafy streets, interesting and even modernistic typography like the ‘Remuera Bowling Club’, to privately owned ‘named’ homes or letterbox numbers; all these aspects allowed us to see what maybe the residents hadn’t noticed for some time.

Remuera is such a strong word, although changed through history from Remu-wera to its current name – Remuera; we knew this word must have prominence.

When designing the new brand identity we knew the logotype had to be strong, solid and timeless while evoking character and strength.

Typography for Strategy Design & Advertising is one of the most important elements of design. We chose a base typeface called ‘Parisine Plus’ by Jean François Porchez, a French type designer probably most recognized for his design of the typepography used on the Metro’s signage in Paris. We felt this typeface would evoke a comfortable yet stylistic approach to creating the final logotype.

Colour was also a major consideration. We used what we saw in the streets: ochre-coloured roofing, brick, trees, rolling landscape, water, vibrant retail, people young and old, clothing, cars – everything that is Remuera today.

Photography played a big part in this project. We filmed many locations all with Remuera people – ‘A day in the life’ if you like. The brand lives and breathes the wonderful local residents. We hope this entices people outside Remuera to ‘Take Another Look’.

Martin O’Sullivan

Managing Partner
Strategy Design and Advertising

Lauren Jackson Chair of the R.B.A. Executive Committee invites you to Take Another Look at Remuera

When one approaches change whether it be small or momentous one does it with a sense of trepidation and the old line in mind "if it aint broke why fix it'.  But there comes a time when an opportunity presents itself and it would be foolhardy to ignore.   This opportunity came to the Executive Committee of the Remuera Business Association over the last few months, we had gone through the strategic planning process, the customer surveys and had a pile of information looking at us telling us what to do.   Remuera has been well served in the past by what it has achieved in providing satisfaction to its businesses, retailers and shoppers alike but we had information telling us a new look was much needed and that we had to move forward so we could continue to grow.

Both Victoria and Martin have documented the process of where we have come from and outlined where we are going but it is again opportune to acknowledge what a great place Remuera really is.  When our local retailers, shoppers and residents were approached by the team to participate in photos we were only turned down by those who had prior commitments, to a man, woman and child all said yes, when do you want us and what do you want us to do exhibiting the same sense of pride and excitement about Remuera that we all share.  To all those who participated, thank you.

This is not about Remuera in itself, it is about the people who live and work in Remuera and its environs and the importance that Remuera has to Auckland as a whole.   So, Auckland, we invite you to “Take Another Look” at Remuera to discover what we are so passionate about.