Media: Publishing brands

Starting in October, Icon, the male fashion and lifestyle magazine edited by Andrea Tenerani, will be joined by Angelo Pannofino in the role of editor-at-large.

With the appointment of Pannofino, the Mondadori Group brand will further enhance fashion, its protagonists and the worlds surrounding it, using it as a lever to talk about society while also expanding coverage of art, culture, news and current affairs.

Born in in Puglia, aged 45, with a degree in law, during his professional career Angelo Pannofino has exercised his creativity, firstly in advertising and, subsequently, in journalism, where has collaborated on a range of titles, including Rolling Stone, L’Uomo Vogue, Wired, Icon, as well as the cultural pages of the daily newspaper Domani.

Focus, the Mondadori Group brand, leader in the popular science segment, once again confirms its role as a point of reference for all enthusiasts about issues related to science, technology and nature, and introduces an even richer offer. 

With over 3.1 million readers every month (Source: Audipress, 2021/I), the magazine edited by Raffaele Leone underlines its position as Italy’s most widely read monthly thanks to a successful formula which has always managed to combine authoritative contributions from internationally renowned scientists and experts, with an unmistakable style that is both clear and direct and able to reach an increasingly large audience.

Every day Focus makes the most recent discoveries accessible and engaging, helps readers to navigate around fake news and broaden awareness and understanding of the evolution of the most recent discoveries through a multimedia system that includes the magazine and the web, special events such as Focus Live, as well as podcasts and social media, where its numbers continue to grow. The brand’s community currently has more than 3.2 million fans (Source: Shareablee and Insight, June 2021), an increase of 17% compared with 2020 thanks to a rich schedule of engaging and instructive content, reaching a peak organic reach of over 1 million per post.

Plus, it is going to be a summer of new features for Focus, that is enhancing its offer with special content and new editorial initiatives.

Starting with the magazine, which will be on newsstands in July and August with two double issues: both of which will, exceptionally, add to the features and columns of Focus 40 pages of Focus Domande & Risposte, (Questions & Answers) to satisfy the curiosity of everyone and provide answers to the most incredible and interesting facts: from the animal world to technology, and from history to health, as well as food, sport and economics.

And, for the first time, Focus will bring to newsstands the “Focus Guides”, two exclusive collectors’ volumes to explore and admire the 101 UNESCO Heritage Sites, available from 30 July. The first volume “Paesaggi e natura” (Landscapes and Nature) features an account of the most beautiful and suggestive sites in every country, from the Great Wall in China to the Galapagos Islands, and the extraordinary Italian villages of the Cinque Terre. The second volume “Arte e civiltà” (Art and Civilisation) will be a journey of discovery of the world’s cultures and the symbolic sites of history.

The launch of these initiatives will be enhanced by an advertising campaign conceived to amplify the new features among the target audience, and planed across various media, from the magazines and newspapers, as well as radio, social media and TV.

These activities also confirm Focus as a dynamic brand that is always careful to satisfy the needs of a highly curious and interested public looking to discover and understand the world through the lens of science.

First launched on TikTok just over one year ago, GialloZafferano has now reached 1 million followers, confirming the success of the title’s offer on all social networks.

A result to which, again on the short video platform, should be added over 300,000 followers – and growing – that the brand has reached in its international version in English.

The Mondadori Group’s food media brand immediately won over the community of the popular social network thanks to a mix of exclusive content and an original approach, designed with the aim of actively involving an increasingly broader audience and becoming a point of reference in the kitchen, also for younger people.

In fact, the formula of short video recipes has proved to be a winner for GialloZafferano not only on TikTok, but also on other social networks, in particular Instagram, with over 40 million views every month.

This success has been achieved thanks to an editorial programme involving more than 50 top creators: from Aurora Cavallo, (@cooker.girl), with her unmistakable red apron and a vast repertoire of “traditionally new” recipes, to Daniele Rossi (@danielerossichef), the irresistible Tuscan chef capable of bringing everyone closer to popular traditional dishes and the very best raw materials, up to Khalid El Mahi (@foodqood), with a range of dishes rich in Middle Eastern influences, and Andriana Kulchytska (@adrianathrr), constantly looking for the most amusing ideas with a nod to the world of fitness.

A group of young and dynamic talents, which, from today, is enhanced by the exclusive collaboration of food creator and TikTok ambassador Diletta Secco (@dilettasecco), promoter of the concept of sustainability in the kitchen, with simple recipes uniquely designed to reduce waste to a minimum and raise awareness among the community on the issue of healthy food with a reduced environmental impact

“Embracing social media as a communication paradigm means always being ready to experiment with new approaches and to interface with continuously evolving targets. The brand’s development strategy is consequently reinforced by the collaboration of the many creators that GialloZafferano is able to attract and making us the home of the best talents in the kitchen,” declared Andrea Santagata, General Manager of Mondadori Media. “Our constantly growing numbers confirm once again the brand’s outstanding vocation for innovation, which is capable of evolving by always putting people’s needs and requests at the core of what we do.”

The success achieved on TikTok confirms GialloZafferano’s leadership in the cooking segment. Giallozafferano.it is the website of reference with a unique audience of 15.4 million users per month (Source: Audiweb, April 2021), to which should be added leadership on social media, with a community of 19.3 million fans across six platforms.

These results also contribute to the growth of the audience of Mondadori Media, the leading publisher on social networks with over 41.4 million fans (Source: Shareablee and Insight, June 2021) and a point of reference also on TikTok, where the company is present with 8 other brands, in addition to GialloZafferano, and more than 2.5 million fans overall.

These innovations also mean new opportunities for our commercial partners, who can reach new audiences and take advantage of innovative editorial formats, making use of both the Mondadori Media content factory and the unique team of food creators that collaborate with its brands

Grazia, the leading 100% Italian fashion brand, with 21 editions around the world and edited by Silvia Grilli, is on newsstands with a special issue entitled Olimpiadi della rinascita (the Olympics of rebirth)
The magazine looks at the protagonists of the Olympics and the rediscovery of sport. Readers will find the athletes of the 2021 Games in Tokyo, to the icons of the past: they will read  stories and first-hand accounts from many of the talents engaged in these post-pandemic competitions and dealing with the special rules and regulations that must now be followed.

“This extraordinary issue of Grazia is dedicated to the athletes who will bring us the thrill of these Olympics and the return of normal life,” declared the editor Silvia Grilli. “They will excite us with their records and help us to see a better world. Because that is what the Olympic Games are: commitment, respect, courage, self-improvement, progress, equality, pace, internationalism.  As well as a more satisfying tomorrow for women. Enjoy!” the editor concluded.

The personalities and contributors to the special issue include: the writer Laura Imai Messina, who has lived for years in Japan and talks about how the country will feel during the Olympics when they can once again enjoy competitive sport with spectators.

Historian Eva Cantarella explains to Grazia how society needs female champions that are an inspiration for the young girls of today and tomorrow, because sport is also equality and respect.

And then lots of athletes, authentic talents from different disciplines: from swimming’s ‘divine’ Federica Pellegrini, now competing in what will be her last Olympics, to Simona Quadarella, another highly talented swimmer who in Tokyo hopes to leave her mark. We also have the coach of the Italian national women’s football team Milena Bartolini and Novella Calligaris, the first swimmer to win a medal at the 1972 Olympics, who tells Grazia about the effort involved in becoming the number one.

Other voices opening up to the magazine include the trainer Giorgio Cagnotto who for years coached his daughter, the diver Tania who explains just how long the road to the podium is.  The fencer Alice Volpi shares with Grazia her excitement ahead of this great challenge, as does the rhythmic gymnast Alessia Maurelli.
Then there is women’s volleyball with the captain of team Italy Myriam Silla and the long jumpers Marcell Jacobs and Gianmarco Tamberi. As well as other accounts from young protagonists of sport: for water polo Pietro Figlioli, for wrestling Frank Chamizo Marquez and Abraham Conyedo Ruano and for artistic gymnastics Vanessa Ferrari.

In this special issue of Grazia will also find portraits by leading photographers of 6 great athletes who are part of the history of the Olympics and of sport. The basketball legend Michael Jordan, US swimming campion Mark Spitz, and the long jump champion Fiona May. As well as Carl Lewis who broke world records in both the 100 metres and the long jump, winning medals at four Olympics, Florence Griffith, the world’s fastest woman of all time and the great fencer Valentina Vezzali.

This special issue is also enriched by cool fashion with a sporty soul and beauty that emphasises the body and footloose, the new trend in which you walk barefoot.

Grazia – which reaches a total audience of 4.3 million people, including users and readers (Source: Nielsen data Fusion December 2020) – will also produce a special entitled Sport generation, available on Grazia.it, in which three young athletes will talk about their passion for sport, the sacrifices, the satisfactions and the hopes. #Graziasportgeneration also continues on the brand’s social media profiles, in particular Instagram, with a rich range of content and background, including curiosities, quizzes and sports-themed surveys, and involving 1.6 million fans (Source: Shareablee, TikTok, Pinterest June 2021).

Focus Storia, the Mondadori Group brand dedicated to the personalities, events and curiosities of history, is enhancing its offer with new formats and content which, from the magazine to the web and social media, extends also to podcasts.

In fact, the magazine edited by Raffaele Leone has made available to the public the portal “Storia in Podcast” (History in Podcasts), Italy’s most complete audio library to enable readers and users to discover in a new way the protagonists and facts that have marked human civilisation.

An unprecedented and exclusive journey, with over 180 continuously updated episodes divided into 10 thematic areas that talk about the great events of the past in a simple but rigorous approach, thanks to the contribution of contemporary historians and commentators from leading Italian universities.

Enhancing the “Storia in podcast” series, an episode created to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the birth of Princess Diana is now available. From her origins, in Sandringham, in Norfolk, to her marriage to Prince Charles in 1981 to the tragic car accident in which she lost her life in the late summer of 1997.

A special episode that is part of the Focus Storia podcast collection dedicated to the events of the ever-popular British royal family: from “The Crown: from fiction to reality”, in which the writer and historian Hugo Vickers discusses the celebrated Netflix TV series, up to “Prince Philip” and “The Queen’s Corgis”.

A selection of content, available on the Focus-branded web site, that already reaches an overall audience of 6 million readers and users (Source: Nielsen Data Fusion, November 2020) as well as on the Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast and  Amazon Podcast platforms, where over 1.1 million listeners have been recorded, confirming the success of this innovative format which completes the o Focus Storia offer.

“Podcasts are an extraordinary tool able to attract a broad and complementary audience alongside the fans who already follow us on the Focus Storia magazine. Adding podcasts is part of a wider project aimed at making Focus an authentic multimedia world accessible across all platforms on the market. In addition, a history podcast, in a country like ours, that is full of entrepreneurial excellence that, while relevant to the present, also has an interesting, often local and family-based, past, will also enable us to examine this reality which is unknown to most people,” declared the editor of the magazine, Raffaele Leone.

The Focus Storia community has also been won over by the many episodes that look at great personalities for the present and the past: from the last King of Italy, Umberto II, in the words of his daughter Maria Gabriella di Savoia, to Dante Alighieri and Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the football phenomenon Diego Armando Maradona. And then the great interest in current events, with the success of an exclusive docuseries: from the story of Alfredino, 40 years after the tragedy of Vermicino, up to ten episodes on the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, with previously unseen photos and archive recordings that have never been heard before.

Teaching materials, summaries, conceptual maps, guides and background details prepared by teachers, as well as podcasts with audio snippets for speed up revision, a YouTube channel and dedicated groups on Facebook and Telegram: also this year Studenti.it confirms its role as a point of reference for schoolkids involved in the high school diploma exams, making available all of the necessary resources to face and overcome the challenge.

The Mondadori Group brand – used by the community also as a platform for sharing opinions, doubts and expectations, starting from surveys and questionnaires – has continued to offer support for students outside of school with a wide range of materials on its web site and on social media, confirming its position as a leader in the educational segment with 5 million unique users per month (Source: Comscore, April 2021).

THE MOST CLICKED CONTENT – Exhausted after a year and a half of distance learning and by the final rush of checks and tests, final year high school students have once again found in digital content an indispensable source of support for revision ahead of the exams. This is confirmed by a survey conducted on the eve of the exams by Studenti.it on a sample of 40,000 pupils: 50% of them declared that they found the summaries extremely useful, followed by conceptual maps (25%), background (14%) and videos (9%). However, it is podcasts that won the record number of clicks, for which, in the month of May alone, more than 165,000 downloads were recorded, with a total of over 1.2 million downloads on the brand’s channel.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNITY – Among the many difficulties encountered at the end of the year, the biggest one concerned the preparation for the exam: it is by chance that, according to a recent survey by Studenti.it, 80% of students did not feel adequately prepared or were afraid of gaps due to distance learning. The exams, however, went better than expected, as can be seen from the comments collected on the brand’s social media channels, which have become an authentic meeting and exchange point for all the students: “My exam went well. I was excited, I had studied a lot and it seemed like a walk in the park,” writes Veronica. “Guys, I’’s over! An unforgettable feeling, good luck to the next lot!”, echoes Desiree.

From literary summaries to mathematical explanations, from English cards to scientific curiosities, and from practical tips to jog the memory and concentration to suggestions for dealing with performance anxiety, the final year exams are confirmed as increasingly social and digital.

RECORD ON TIKTOK – Present on all major social networks with a fanbase of 910,000 users (Source: Shareablee and TikTok, June 2021), in the weeks of the exams Studenti.it enjoyed unprecedented success on TikTok. In fact, for the first time, with the launch of the hashtags #imparacontiktok, #imparacontiktokitalia and #maturità2021, even the popular social network attracted a significant number of students struggling with the state exams.

Thanks to the quality and immediacy of the educational video snippets, as well as the openness and spontaneity of the young creators, the Studenti.it channel received a wave of subscriptions, with more than 310,000 followers and more than 3 million likes; a total of 7 million views.

The commitment of the Studenti.it team will not stop even during the summer months: the brand’s TikTok creators will continue to keep students company, with lots of new content designed to support them both in their choice of university and in view of getting back to school.

La Bellezza delle arti unisce le Persone (The Beauty of Art Brings People Together): is the title of an event organised by INTERNI, the Mondadori Group’s interiors and contemporary design magazine edited by Gilda Bojardi, dedicated to the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai.

The Universal Exposition, which runs from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022, is the first to be held in a country of the ME.NA.SA. area, i.e. the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia: an event of great significance also for issues relating to architecture, design and sustainability.

Expo Dubai offers an opportunity for recovery and a reaffirmation of Italy in all its many facets – from the arts and crafts, to its ingenuity and knowledge – in line with the claim of the much-anticipated global event Connecting minds, creating the future and the title given to Italy’s participation:: Beauty Brings People Together.

The Italian Pavilion, which will open its doors at Expo 2020 Dubai on 1 October, will in fact provide an account of Italian excellence. The thread running through all its elements is the beauty of our country: the landscape, architecture, art, science and manufacturing. The art and culture of know-how will testify to the country’s capacity to enhance history by bringing it up to date through contemporary languages and technologies. The value of the beauty of art at the Pavilion will be represented in the installations of the Belvedere, the Giardino delle Storie (the Garden of Stories)- created with the CNR to control the emotions of plants – and, above all, the Teatro della Memoria (the Theatre of Memory), a space with the walls lined by 2,600,000 gold leaf and glass tiles that reproduce those of the Palatine chapel in Ravenna with an octagon that houses a unique and unrepeatable 5 metre and one centimetre high digital copy of Michelangelo’s David.

The debate will include Paolo Glisenti, Commissioner General for Italy at Expo 2020 Dubai, Davide Rampello, Artistic Director of the Italian Pavilion, Gioia Placuzzi, Chief Operating Officer of Sicis, and the great master of photography, Massimo Sestini – who will show images from above of the Italian Pavilion and David, from the digitisation to installation – in addition to a speech by Massimo Fagioli, Chairman and CEO of Cartiere Paolo Pigna.

During the encounter, which will be the first occasion on which what can be seen inside the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai will be presented, there will be a particular focus on the significance of the event today. In fact, Expo has become a hybrid event, both physical and digital, which also offers an opportunity to reach virtual visitors from all over the world. But we will also talk about the eco-sustainability of the Pavilion because, as it is completely compostable, after it has been decommissioned all of its parts will be reused.

The event will be available on Tuesday 29 June at 18.30, on internimagazine.it

Subsequent events will be held in September: one during the exhibition-event INTERNI Creative Connections, organised by the magazine for the FuoriSalone 2021 in Milan, and then in Venice during the Architecture Biennale.

This INTERNI initiative is part of the media partnership between Mondadori Media, Official Gold Sponsor of the Pavilion, and the Italian Commissioner for Expo 2020 Dubai which foresees a number of communication, cultural, publishing and event activities both in the lead up to the Expo and during the entire six month period of the event.

Icon, the Mondadori Group’s male lifestyle and fashion brand, is launching “Ready, steady, play”, a special issue to talk about and celebrate sport, as a symbol of re-emergence and a new style of life, and the worlds that surround it: fashion and sportswear, to coincide with the opening of the Milan Fashion Week, wellbeing and new technologies.

The special issue, on newsstands from 19 June, will be a homage to vitality, positivity and the rediscovery of the joy of living alongside others. It will have four different covers featuring protagonists of the summer’s most important sporting events – from football’s Euro 2020 to the Olympic Games – and the athletes of emerging disciplines, offering readers a different vision of sport and the re-birth that it represents.

 “A new season is opening up for everyone, that’s what we hope and our way of experiencing sport could really become a symbol of the re-emergence that is on the horizon and an agent of social change,” said the magazine’s editor, Andrea Tenerani.

 The issue opens with an exclusive conversation between the editor of Icon and Mino Raiola, the ‘king’ of football agents, who the magazine asked about the values that underlie sport: “Inclusion, equality, the need for a level playing field and to learn to work and live together regardless of where one comes from: football is a mirror of life. These values, which are fundamental for football, are also fundamental for society and in the daily life of all of us”, he told Icon. Raiola also explained to the magazine edited by Andrea Tenerani his view about his work over the years: “I leave it to the players and my family to judge me, if they are happy, then I’m happy too. And then, as we say in such circumstances, if you choose a job that you love, you only have to work one day and you’ll never have to work another day in your life”, concluded “the man behind the success of some of football’s greatest talents of the age”. 

One of the stars of one of the four Icon covers is the football player Erling Haaland. A rising star of European and world football, Haaland talks about himself in an exclusive interview, conducted in partnership with The Daily Telegraph and leading sports journalist Jason Burt. The Norwegian striker confesses to the magazine that his great obsession is the Champions League. He started following it when he was a little boy and made his first appearance on the small field near his home at the age of 19 where he immediately made his mark. “I used to watch the matches when I was very young: I don’t remember when the Champions League wasn’t a part of my life. There were some great teams with legendary top-scoring players. My dream became that of playing in the Champions League and scoring lots of goals. It’s the tournament where the best players play: that’s their place”. And he also admits how important it is to win, “It’s my biggest dream!”

Icon also has a cover dedicated to the Azzurri who in these days are engaged in Euro 2020: the magazine met the Italian national football team, led by manager Roberto Mancini, in Coverciano where they posed for an exclusive photo shoot in the uniform designed by Giorgio Armani for Emporio Armani.

The collaboration between Icon and Bruce Weber continues and in this special issue the outstanding American photographer returns with a more than 20-page feature with portraits of emerging athletes, including, exclusively, Sean O’Malley, also known as Suga, the most promising fighter of the new generation of fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and protagonist of one of the issue’s covers.

Icon also gives space in this sports issue to the rising stars of Italian sport and the disciplines making their debut at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The magazine has selected as the symbol of this generation of young stars, who have been called upon to establish the new rules in their respective disciplines, Ludovico Fossali, the speed climbing champion, captured by photographer Giampaolo Sgura and another protagonist of one of the covers of this special issue of Icon.

The new issue features many talents, personalities and exclusive stories. Including Milena Bertolini, manager of the Italian Women’s Football Team who in the pages of Icon talks about what is happening today in women’s football, and Donyell Malen, the PSV Eindhoven star, photographed during a fashion shoot. And then there is basketball, with P.J.Tucker, one of the outstanding players of the NBA season.

The sports issue will also be on Instagram and on the Icon web site, which has recently been completely redesigned, where, throughout the summer, the brand will continue to cover sport as a symbol of a general re-birth with interviews, exclusive content and updates about competitions and athletes.

With a 22% increase in the number of advertising pages in the first half of the year, compared with the same period of 2020, and total revenues, print and digital, up by 20%, Icon confirms its position as the market leader in the male lifestyle segment. 

Responding to the new needs of contemporary living, accompanying readers with proposals and solutions that are always original and accessible: CasaFacile, the Mondadori Group brand edited by Francesca Magni, confirms its position as a point of reference for interiors and lifestyle enthusiasts, thanks to the excellent performance, recorded in the first 5 months of the year, of both the magazine the website and on social networks.

“Every month on newsstands and every day on social media, it is exciting to experience the active participation of our community: people who are passionate about the home and everything that can make it more liveable, hungry for inspiration, style ideas and solutions to copy, as well as ways to make the house more in tune with nature. In recent months we have literally “felt” the growing loyalty towards CasaFacile, in a virtuous circle that integrates both print and digital. The biggest satisfaction is receiving messages on Direct Instagram that say: ‘I discovered you on Instagram and now I can’t wait to get the magazine every month from the newsstand,’” said Francesca Magni, editor of CasaFacile.

The first 5 issues of the year of the monthly, which have also included special editions enhanced with new features, in fact recorded a 7% increase in circulation compared with 2020 (Source: the publisher, January-May).

“La Casa dei sogni” (Dream Homes), the first digital Festival conceived by CasaFacile, which started with the special April issue was a huge success. In fact, for a month the brand used the website and social media to talk about what we dream for our homes and how to improve the quality of life by redesigning the spaces in which we live: It involved a community of over 1 million fans, up 39% compared with last year (Source: Shareablee + Pinterest May 2021), and achieved a total reach of 27 million users and 1.7 million total video views (source: Facebook, Instagram and site).

CasaFacile has proved to be an authoritative and effective partner also for its growing number of advertisers, who are increasingly and aware of the brand’s ability to generate audience and interact with its vast community: in the period from January to May 2021, CasaFacile’s advertising revenues (print and digital) grew by 47% compared with the previous year, with a space share of more than 60% in its segment of reference, establishing itself as the market leader the monthly consumer interiors segment.

In the autumn, a number of new initiatives await readers and users who are more attentive to new ways of living at home, sustainability and ‘green’: CasaFacile will continue to interpret the need for design that is more in tune with nature and will introduce a series of initiatives that will take shape in the coming months, entitled “Natural Recall”, starting with two special issues of the magazine.

September’s issue of CasaFacile will be dedicated to “A house in harmony with nature”, giving space to new projects from all over the world, with rooms aimed at optimising thermal comfort and brightness, solutions to multiply the quantity of green, even in small spaces, and furnishings in natural materials. With stories from people who have decided to integrate nature into their lives and new ways of bringing nature into the home, such as balcony gardens and botanical décor.

The October issue,  will feature “A home in harmony with you”, an invitation to build a house tailored to what you want and enjoy: room by room, tips and smart products for virtuous living, from carefully selected new models for the kitchen to the best materials for sustainability, recyclability, resistance and pleasantness of use, as well as textiles for a good sleep, the organisation of remote working, to reconcile work and private life.

All this will also lead into the second edition of the CasaFacile digital festival, which will run from 4 to 30 October 2021 with content and background detail on the website and on social media. “Natural Recall” is an invitation to global well-being: and starts from the theme of nature and sustainability, but extends to embrace all kinds of products that can make life at home more pleasant, add atmosphere and live-ability, decorate, creating a new relationship with the outside world, making the home more connected and easy to manage remotely, enabling you to equip home offices or fitness and hobby corners, while also improving energy performance and thermal comfort.

A new opportunity for partners who want to talk about their projects and new ideas to render the home more in harmony with us and with nature, with video formats and Instagram stories, produced by the team of bloggers, interior designers and architects who work with the magazine.

A form of cross-media storytelling that will engage readers on all the brand’s digital touchpoints, thanks to the ability of CasaFacile to evolve its offer to embrace the new needs of the contemporary audience.