Farm Rio celebrates 100 years of Copacabana Palace

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. For today's show, we head to Rio de Janeiro to celebrate the 100 years of the iconic Copacabana Palace Hotel. As part of the celebrations, Brazilian clothing brand FarmHue prepared a selection of special products to celebrate the centenary. I had the pleasure to speak with Roberta Almeida, Belmond's Brand and Marketing Director, and Gabriel Oliveira, FarmRio's Brand Director.

0:46Roberta Almeida from Belmão and Gabriel Oliveira from Farm Real, welcome to Monaco Radio, talking about two brands that I very much love and Monaco too. Roberta, perhaps I'll start with you because, of course, you work with Belmão and the Copacabana Palace. I mean, the Copacabana Palace is an icon in Brazil and it's celebrated 100 years. Even foreigners know, of course, what the Copacabana is. But tell us the importance of the hotel to Brazil. It's where Rio starts. Copa has a hundred years. It's a centenary hotel with a big, big importance for the country. For the city of Rio, because it's the city of Rio on the map, and also for the country in terms of all historical roles and all tourism related to Rio de Janeiro.

1:34So, in Copa, it's where the people come to play and the legends come to play and the big celebrations in the country, Happy Centropa. So we are proud to celebrate 100 years with a full calendar of activities, events and a different collaboration. And by the way, before I go to Gabriel, we're talking about celebrations. I mean, Carnival just finished a few weeks ago. I mean, how is it this year? I've seen a lot of pictures, you know, from rainy London. Yeah, Carnival, one of our missions with Copa is to spread the Carnival to the world. Carnival, it's an amazing, very cultural celebration in Brazil, a very important one.

2:21A lot of people are involved. There's like emotional feelings related to Carnival. For some people, they just look the beauty of the biggest concert and the biggest event in the world. But for them, their participation is very strong because this is a sense of collaboration, society, and CSR, a lot of things in the world. For us at Copa, we embrace carnival in different ways. Of course, we have the biggest carnival ball in the country. And may I say maybe in the road because it's something absolutely amazing, extraordinary. The carnival has a lot of additions. We don't have 100 editions yet, but we have a lot.

3:04We receive a lot of tourists from different places. This year we received influencers from Japan, from Mexico, from US, from UK. So it's a big, big event and a big celebration for us. And Gabriel, I'm moving to you now because, you know, you work for Farm. Farm is another brand that is really selling real in the country. I remember when it opened in Sao Paulo and I was like, oh my God, this brand is really cool. Where is it from? but now it's expanding to London. It's doing very well. We can talk about this later but first of all, tell us about the collaboration with Copacabana Palace because in my opinion, it kind of makes sense.

3:40Two excellent brands from the same amazing city. Tell us a bit more about the collaboration and what is it exactly? Is it a selection of special products from farm? So, yeah, we were talking about how it all started and I like to go back to the story of Copacabana Palace because I think Copacabana policy in some way has invented what is so-called today's Zonasua of Rio. Because the city before that time, it was by the bay, has a different sense of belonging. And Copacabana policy emerged in the moment that the city is discovering the south area and is relating to the ocean in a different way. And so there's a sense that I could tell that Copacabana has been an important actor in inventing what we call Zonasu and what we call Cardioca lifestyle.

4:32Okay, so it happened 100 years ago. And 80 years later, this brand emerged as a strong and loved brand that represents this lifestyle. So the stories were already connected. So when we first met to talk about it, for me, there were so many possibilities because their brands, they have so much to do with each other. We are saying, we could have a room here. You could have a store. You could have a pop-up. You can have a collection. You can do everything. And it's hard for us. Farm Rio, you're very picky and very, not picky, I would say, but you're like, you take partnership very seriously. Because you have, really have to believe that there's like some real connection.

5:12This is not only commercial. There should be like meaning. It's like dating, you know? For us, it's like, okay, these brands have to have like a strong connection to relate. date. So with Coppa, it was so easy because actually it was too much opportunities. We were like, for a while, you're confusing. What are you going to do? Because every launch, you have like long launch talking about what you want to do. And every time we talk, we have like more possibilities and more possibilities. But I had in my mind for the experience I have, I've been farm for 17 years now. So I know by our experience before with other collabs, we really needed to bring it to product because that's where farm real magic happened because of our prints because the way we translate our style so we were like thinking about many options but then we decided to go for to product even though we take more time and it's not easy and in the end we ended up having this idea of doing this tribute to the hotel creating an exclusive print of the hotel and that's for me was the best idea because that's why we do the best at FarmRio.

6:23That's our story is now this print, not only the product, we have two products. We have a scarf and another product, but not only the product, but I think the signature with the prints bring the sense of this connection. And now, I don't know, everybody wants this now. Like it's sold out everywhere and everybody wants the scarf, everybody wants the prints. And that's how it should be in the beginning. So that's how it was created. I think Farm Rio and Copacabana for sure have a long story ahead of many things we still can do together. I'm very happy that we started to collaborate in such a beautiful date with the 100 years.

7:01We didn't want to miss this, but the stories are connected, as I said, and Copacabana is an icon and Farm Rio celebrates Rio, so there's no way to separate. We have to do stuff together. I'm glad about the product because that's something you can take home as well, you You know, because if it's a pop-up or an event, it's great. But I think a product, yeah, it stays with you in a way. And I think that's part of why it's so good as well, right? I'm going to ask as well to Roberta. One thing that Belmont, Copacabana Palace and Pharma has in common is this. You're trying to sell Brazilian-ness. I mean, because, of course, not necessarily a successful Brazilian brand will sell Brazilian-ness, in my opinion.

7:42But I think perhaps that's why it fitted so well, this collaboration. Right, Roberta? Exactly. To complement what Gabriel said, when you're thinking about these two iconic brands, you're talking about genuine karaoke brands. And they are really love brands in Brazil. Everybody wants respect and love, Copa and also form. So when we start this conversation in a long lunch and discussion and brainstorm, it was really amazing. And with a lot of ideas, as Gabriel said, you say, look, we can do so many things together, but I strongly believe that the real soul, it is the main point between them. Because Copa has celebrations, Rio is period, is Carioca lifestyle, everything happens in the pool of Copa, everybody wants to go there.

8:36But at the same time, when you see the products of a farm, it's all about happiness, it's about to this soul of a Carioca lifestyle. So this connection makes a lot of sense, and I think it is something to show up real to the road. And Gabriel, it's interesting that those products I was reading, that they're not only for sale in Brazil or at the Copacabana, but they're also abroad. And as I mentioned, I'm very happy that there's some sort of expansion of farm here in London. Tell us a bit more about that. I mean, is that the plan for farm as well, to have a bigger presence abroad as well? Yeah, we are expanding abroad now.

9:13Like in Brazil, we already be with 100. We have 99 stores and our own store in London that we just launched in December. It's our 100th store. So it will still grow in Brazil, but we have like a pretty aggressive plan of growing abroad. And UK has shown as one of the most connected audience to everything we do. Marketing-wise, also on sales. so that's why our first store and we were on the store in europe was in uk we are going to open a store in paris this year now and you're going to open some more stores in us we already have three on the stores there in california new york and miami but you know it's funny to say that because our founder katia barros has always had london as her favorite city outside of brazil and london has being shown like even though it's such a different culture it relates to print and relates with dressing in a way that they can interpret they can look at farm real and and make sense for them so we already have this one store and we have a plan to have at least five stores only in london amazing well i'm very glad london was the first choice if i do i do think that londoners can wear print.

10:33They love it. So I think it matches very well. I'm going to ask, Roberta, what's the secret of the Copacabana Palace? I know it's a very basic question, but after 100 years, I've stayed at the hotel once. And the reason it stayed with me, not only because the rooms were great and the smells is amazing. Actually, I need to find out with you what's that smell they put at the reception. But what's the secret? I have a feeling service is very important in a way because everybody's so friendly, attentive. But I wonder if you can give us some insights. Service for us is the heart of everything, as Belmont is.

11:08But I think Copacabana Palace is something related to the imaginary of the people. People want to be there and thinking about the biggest stories that happened there, all the divas from the Hollywood divas and all the big names that went to Copa once. And when you're thinking about the pool and all the service around, and we have like two restaurants, Michelin stars, so everything that we made, it made with a lot of excellence. So it's not only about provide a good service, but provide above and beyond the service. But more than this, I think Copa has a very strong way to connect different ages.

11:53And our statement for 100 years, it was honor the past and inspire the future. Because we know we are a 100 years old hotel, but how we can be relevant for the new audience? How we can keep this disability around COPA for the young generation? And now our 100 of COPA, as we call this framework communication, it was about this. If we made an event, we invite a very well-known musician, but at the same time, we invite a lock and we made a big event in the beach for one million people. At the same time that we have like Michelin star in our restaurant, we have this amazing collaboration with Faram, very colorful.

12:39At the same time, we have a very curated content on social media and try to engage as much as we can in social media. We have a printed book with a traditional UK publisher. It is Van Damme. So I think our secret is play with different audience and moments, and we can be relevant for our guests in different ages.

13:10That was Roberta Almeida, Belmont's Brand and Marketing Director, and Gabriel Oliveira, Farm Rio's Brand Director. If you're in Rio, you should shop at Farm and stay at the Copacabana Palace. The show was edited by Tamsin Howard, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco. Thank you for listening.