Meet the IPM: Interview with Caio Esteves

caio estevesCaio Esteves, a fellow of the Institute of Place Management, is an architect by training and a specialist in branding. He began his career as a brand manager in the furniture industry, where he stayed for four years before establishing his own agency in 2006. In 2015 he founded the first company that specializes in Place Branding in Brazil, Places for us, the company that currently runs the first Brazilian start-up certified with the social impact seal BCORP (pending). Beside the practice of Place Branding, he divides his activities between lectures and lessons about Branding/Place Branding, coordinating the first MBA place branding in the country as well as writing a book on the subject, which launched this month. Continue reading “Meet the IPM: Interview with Caio Esteves”

Place Branding and new real estate entreprises in São Paulo, Brazil

caioby Caio Esteves*

How do you start a place branding project in new real estate development projects from ground zero?  Where do you find the identity that will guide such a process? How do you develop a place branding strategy with authenticity and not as a form of marketing, limited to “selling” a place?

In this article I’ll share an experience from a new real estate development project that involves place branding, placemaking and community engagement in São Paulo, Brazil, called Bairro da Gente/ Aeroclube (Our Neighborhood / Flying Club). The project takes place in Limeira, a municipality of a 300,000 inhabitants in the São Paulo state. This greenfield placemaking project has a unique feature: it is a project for a low-income population, otherwise usually limited to monotonous and faceless housing projects, that ignore differences between people and groups. This specific approach uses the cities-for-people thought, propagated by Jan Gehl, Kent, White, Jacobs and others. Bairro da Gente is based on three principles: mixed income, multiple purposes and cultural as well as housing diversity. The goal of this triptych is to create places of new centralities. The existence of income-generating elements inside the neighbourhood, (job and entrepreneurial opportunities, technical education, creative and solidary economy) resulting from an approach that encourages mixed uses, decreases the commuting of residents from the outskirts to central areas. This also contributes directly to people’s quality of life and indirectly to the region traffic. Continue reading “Place Branding and new real estate entreprises in São Paulo, Brazil”