Sounds and sights of the Samba: Top 10 observations of Sao Paulo – Things you might or might not know.

Following a recent business trip to the wonderful city of Sao Paulo, my colleague (Alex Crook– Human Sciences Consultant) and I decided that we wanted to pull together our top 10 most interesting facts, observations and insights. The following article gives you a flavour of some of our favourite things. Enjoy!

1. Be prepared for some serious neck-sercise, Sao Paulo is one tall metropolis in the true sense of the word. Think New York with chaos, grime and a sprinkle of samba, and you’re there. It’s a city of immense proportions, the biggest in the southern hemisphere and more helicopters and private jets than any other city in the world. You’ll quickly get used to the constant buzz of private choppers overhead delivering one of the city’s fat cats to his private helipad. It’s said to be popular to help avoid the huge traffic jams but also the possibility of muggings or even kidnap. Yikes!

2. One million Pizzas a day are eaten throughout the city. This is probably thanks to the mass of Italians who migrated to Sao Paulo in the 1890’s, when they made up half the city’s population. Mama Mia!

4. Boom-ing Economy – Brazil recently overtook the UK as the 6th largest economy, and we can understand why.  We saw a lot of pay-per-month deals and offers of credit. Let Greece, Italy and Spain be a warning to you Brazil. Spend wisely!

5. Six million cars worth of traffic jams, not a bicycle in sight, and massive hills, loads of them. I’m not sure Boris bikes would be such a hit in Sao Paulo and you better get used to the view of tail lights!

6. Japan – Sao Paulo has the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan. There are around 665,000 people of Japanese descent. We saw some cool old Japanese ladies preparing to dance,  check  this out!

7. Tattoo Central – Brazilian creativity extends to body art. They are everywhere you look and take on a really illustrative, graphical and cartoon like style. They seem particularly popular on the shins and calves. No…….I wasn’t tempted, although you can see my colleague went for a double ribbon combo below ! (he he only kidding)

8. Nespresso – I’m sure George Clooney doesn’t have to queue for his Nespresso, but the people in Sao Paulo certainly do. On a Saturday afternoon in a wealthy shopping district we saw this huge queue of Paulistanos looking for their  next  hit of caffeine.

9. Santa in Sao Paulo – Santa was a very busy man this year in Brazil, he was everywhere you looked. Poor fella must have been roasting in that suit with 28 degree heat.

10. Caipirinha’s are very very tasty! Click on the link below if you’d like to  make your own .

Have you been to Sao Paulo or Brazil? What are your thoughts? Are there any insights or observations that you saw, and we haven’t mentioned? Does this reflect consumer patterns in the other emerging markets?

We’d love to hear from you.

Abrigado!