Media: Publishing brands

The Mondadori Group has announced the signing of a licensing agreement with Pantheon Media Group LLC (PMG), a New York-based media company, to launch Grazia in the United States.

Thanks to this deal, Grazia, the first 100% Italian fashion brand with over 20 international editions, strengthens its global presence and lands in one of the most important countries for the luxury and fashion industry.

Grazia USA will introduce a new business model in the American media landscape, with strong growth potential on other markets too: innovative and strongly identity-driven, it will develop through a global multi-channel platform comprising digital, video and social content, complemented by print editions starting from September 2021.

“The arrival of Grazia in the United States is a highly significant event, the first time an all-Italian fashion magazine lands on the US market with a formula that gives a perfect answer to the new needs of readers, users and businesses. In today’s historical juncture, it bears witness to the strength of a brand that has always stood at the forefront, becoming an icon of international renown, leveraging on its authoritative content and incomparable identity,” said Ernesto Mauri, CEO of the Mondadori Group.

These are the main strengths that have allowed the Mondadori Group’s magazine to chart a course of international expansion that has led it to establish a foothold in 23 countries worldwide, in all the major fashion and luxury markets.

“The arrival of Grazia USA is a transformative event that significantly reshapes the fashion and beauty landscape in the United States with a bold type of next generation media organization. The USA edition of Grazia aims to establish itself as the most prominent and influential guide to fashion, with a mission of crafting impactful visual storytelling and thought-provoking and top-tier journalism to empower and inspire readers”, said Dylan Howard, CEO of Pantheon Media Group LLC and Publisher of Grazia USA.

Grazia USA is online on the new platform www.graziamagazine.com/us with a stellar presence: Kim Kardashian-West, who takes on the lead role in an exclusive international project on the brand’s channels.

The new Grazia USA platform will further strengthen the global multi-channel system of the Grazia International Network. With an audience that currently reaches every month a total of 15 million readers, 35 million unique users and over 20 million followers on social media worldwide, the new platform developed by Grazia will become an exclusive global reference point in the fashion industry for an increasingly wide audience of readers, users and businesses.

The Commissioner General’s Office for Italy at Expo 2020 Dubai and Mondadori Media, a Mondadori Group company, announce a partnership for boosting Italy’s participation project in the forthcoming Universal Exhibition with cultural and editorial activities and events. 

The collaboration will involve a rich calendar of editorial events and initiatives both during the exhibition semester and over the course of the build-up year to Expo 2020 Dubai, which will start on 1st October 2021. 

The activities included in the partnership that Mondadori Media will arrange together with the Commissioner’s Office will help to enhance visibility of the main themes that Italy will bring to the attention of the people visiting the national pavilion and to those connected digitally to Expo Dubai, the first large-scale event after the pandemic and the first Universal Exhibition to be held in an Arab country, situated in the heart of the MENASA. (Middle East, North Africa, South Asia) region. 

“The Expo 2020 Dubai Universal Exhibition will be an extraordinary  showcase for Italian companies, as they will be able to communicate  to the world their “Made in Italy” know-how and excellences. As a  leading publisher, we could not fail to grasp this important visibility  opportunity for the entire country. In line with our mission, our aim is to  spread culture, ideas, entertainment and information through our  brands to the widest possible public,” explained Ernesto Mauri, the  Managing Director of Mondadori Group.

“The partnership with Mondadori Media,” declared Paolo Glisenti, the Commissioner General of Section for Italy at Expo 2020 Dubai, “will allow us to expand and promote participation in the first global event after the pandemic, an extraordinary opportunity for reaffirming how Italian beauty has come to be a strategic driver for sustainability, resilience and the country’s relaunching“.

Donna Moderna, the magazine edited by Annalisa Monfreda, is publishing a new issue with a special cover dedicated to the adoption of abandoned cats and dogs.

Featured on the cover of the magazine is the influencer Veronica Ferraro who, for the first time poses with her beloved dog Steve in an effort to improve public awareness of an issue of great current significance to which also the stars of the web are increasingly close.

With more than a million followers on Instagram, Veronica Ferraro is one of the most followed young women in Italy and she has always been an animal lover. After the arrival of Amelia, a very sweet Cavalier King Charles spaniel, she adopted Steve, a mongrel pincher, who appeared for the first time on Instagram along with the influencer in the summer of 2018.

“In 2018, Giorgio and I were visiting Los Angeles and we came across an association for abandoned animals that rounded up dogs for adoption. When little Steve arrived, it was love at first sight. That evening at the home of Chiara (Ferragni, a close friend of Veronica, ed.) she couldn’t contain her joy,” Veronica Ferraro told Donna Moderna. 

A big fashion fan, as well as an example for many women who want to enhance themselves and keep fit, Veronica and Steve are the protagonists in the pages of the magazine of a special fashion feature, along with Cristina and Martina, two animal-loving girls who pose with their four-legged friends.

During the shoot, two backstage videos were also made with exclusive interviews, that will be put up on the brand’s social media profiles.

On a glamourous and heartfelt set, the pets were photographed for Donna Moderna as authentic stars, together with their owners, Veronica, Cristina and Martina: three young women who love grunge and the dandy style, couture dresses and vintage blouses, tartan and black leather, but more than anything else, love their dogs, all abandoned and discovered at dog pounds.

Every year more than 160,000 pets are abandoned: to highlight this phenomenon and to support conscious adoption, Donna Moderna has signed up to the #BENEVENUTOaCASA campaign promoted by the petfood brand Purina in collaboration with ENPA, the historic Italian animal protection association, with more than 240 sections and delegations across Italy for the collection of abandoned and maltreated animals that in 2019 alone numbered more than 2019 35,000.

Donna Moderna is also contributing to the initiative with a dedicated mini-web site www.donnamoderna.com/benvenutoacasa to discover the stories with a happy end told in the first person by people who have taken into their homes an abandoned four-legged friend.

CasaFacile, the Mondadori Group magazine edited by Francesca Magni, presents a special “New Home” issue. On newsstands from 3 October, the issue will focus on new needs for living and new products and services to transform domestic space in a more conscious, useful and sustainable way.

“How will our homes change after the lockdown experience? This is the question that led to the idea of an issue that looks at how to redesign the home, a continuously evolving space, but one which, in recent times, has undergone great transformations,” explains Francesca Magni, editor of CasaFacile. “To try to answer the question we will use the characteristic positive, smart and friendly approach of the magazine, a style that has attracted an enthusiastic and growing community, with over 400,000 followers on Instagram and 432,000 on Facebook,” she added.

“In my May editorial I asked readers what they had realised they really needed in their homes. There were many replies: from open air space to more green inside and outside the home, as well as larger windows, better organised rooms that can also be combined, movable walls, fluid solutions that change over the course of the day to allow for the range of activities that now also take place in domestic spaces. In our special issue all of these desires will find answers in the form of homes designed with new criteria. But thanks also to the contribution of 42 of our CFInfluencers who we asked to think ‘outside of the box’, about a new concept for the home. We have called this an Extraordinary Issue, because what we propose are examples of “exercises in extraordinary thinking”. Along with an extraordinary cover and a sparkling logo!” concluded Francesca Magni.

The special issue presents 5 homes organised in different themes: a new way of using colour; innovative solutions for a better use of light indoors, new furniture to integrate work and relaxation (from home cinema to gyms, and from meditation to hobbies) in the domestic environment. At the heart of the magazine is a focus on kitchens and what’s new in technology and design to address new ways of using the kitchen. The number of pages will increase to enhance the pages dedicated to “New Home” design and to look at new ways of experiencing the home.

The cross-media, multiplatform CasaFacile special is developed across the magazine and social media, with the significant contribution of 42 CF Style bloggers who will, for the first time, be directly involved in content production, also in print with: do-it-yourself ideas for remote working and plants inside the home casa, suggestions on everyday sustainability, a selection of products to make our lives easier and  decluttering, in other words, what to keep and what to get rid of so that we cane free ourselves of the unnecessary.

We will also launch a dedicated hashtag, #casafacilenewhome, that the bloggers will use on their social media profiles, and we will create an  Instagram filter so you can transform your house into a  CasaFacile cover: all you have to do is capture a corner of  your “New Home” with the frontal camera, take a shot and share it in stories with the hashtag #casafacilenewhome and the tag @casafacile. Plus, we have also planned live social media events with accounts fro the magazine.

Thanks to a unique mix of practical advice that favours teste, style and trends, CasaFacile  is always on the side of its readers and their needs, reaching a total audience (magazine and web) of 765,000 net users every month (Source: Nielsen Media Impact Data Fusion – March 2020), to which should be added a community on social media that now numbers more than 850,000 followers.

In the context of the current complex market phase, CasaFacile has confirmed its position as the leader del in its segment, with a 53% share of adv. pages (Nielsen data, January to September 2020).

A leadership that has been developed also thanks to the numerous projects conceived and created ad hoc for clients in different sectors. Initiatives that, with the involvement of stylists and bloggers and the spread of original content on the brand’s social media platforms, now represent a benchmark both for the community of followers and the number of interactions generated.

An advertising campaign in support of CasaFacile “New Home” has been planned on Mondadori Group titles and TV e (20 15” commercials on Discovery home channels) and communication on the DOOH circuit.

CasaFacile “New Home” will be on newsstands from 3 October to 22 October banded with Donna Moderna and Grazia

Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni, the brand leader in the world of entertainment, presents Sorrisi Live, a new social media appointment with show business protagonists, that will accompany users all year round with a rich programme of exclusive interviews, talk shows, musical performances and live videos, starting tomorrow.

Each week the editor Aldo Vitali and the staff of Sorrisi will host some of the most loved personalities from the world of TV, music and cinema, in a new friendly and welcoming space, in close association with the editorial team, live every Wednesday at 3 pm on Facebook and Instagram, and the Sorrisi Live section of Sorrisi.com.

“With special guests, previews and lots of surprises, Sorrisi Live will be a unique window of interaction that will host artists and celebrities and engage readers and digital fans in a relaxed and amusing atmosphere thanks to the privileged relationships that has always existed between Sorrisi and the world of entertainment. And the Sorrisi magic continues all year round, from the magazine to social media and the big events where we are always on the front line,” explains Aldo Vitali, editor of Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni.

Sorrisi Live launches tomorrow, Wednesday 30 September, with singer-songwriter Francesco Gabbani, wo has won a gold disc with his latest album Viceversa, continuing on Wednesday 7 October with Ficarra e Picone, the comic duo that presents Striscia la Notizia, and Wednesday 14 October with the actor Luca Argentero, who will talk about himself just a few days before the launch of the new series of  DOC – Nelle tue mani. For an up-to-date programme, go to www.sorrisi.com.

Following the success of #ACasaConSorrisi, the new Sorrisi Live format will enhance the social media offer of the Mondadori Group brand that is a point of reference for fans of TV and entertainment: Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni is Italy’s top selling and most widely read weekly which, with is crossmedia touchpoints reaches a total audience of  5.1 million users (Source: Nielsen Media Impact data fusion, March 2020).

The launch of Sorrisi Live will be accompanied by two special newsstand initiatives: on 9 October Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni presents Viceversa, the album di Francesco Gabbani featuring the track of the same name that triumphed at the 2020 Sanremo Festival, the summer hit Il sudore ci appiccica, Einstein and other great songs. To coincide with the new episodes of DOC – Nelle tue mani, inoltre, Sorrisi will bring to newsstands the first season of the series on 8 DVDs as a supplement to the weekly from 23 October.

Donna Moderna, the Mondadori Group brand that is a point of reference in the women’s segment, continues to evolve with the launch DMNow, a new digital destination aimed at women under 40 looking for beauty, balance and an aware and sustainable style of life.

A daily inspirational guide to be well with yourself, with others and the environment and to help women to achieve their aspirations by cultivating interests and passions and meeting the challenges that will lead them to realising their potential. A message that is encapsulated in the project’s claim: Beautiful You, Beautiful Life.

Following the success of DMBeauty, the first social media beauty magazine dedicated to Gen Z, with this new launch Donna Moderna updates its communication system to cover, in a targeted manner, also the latest trends regarding the search for balance, inclusion, attention to nature and sustainability.

The name DMNow combines DM, as in Donna Moderna, and Now to highlight the real time nature of content that is always on the side of women and their needs. A mantra for women in search of balance that includes self-awareness and an appreciation of the here and now.

“DMNow is the new digital soul of Donna Moderna. A project that confirms the brand’s continuous innovation and ability to reach targets of different ages and styles. It means that the brand is now three times stronger in the digital area, being able to count on three strong and specific assets: Donna Moderna, DMNow and DMBeauty,” declared Andrea Santagata, general manager of Mondadori Media.

What’s new in DMNow

At the heart of the DMNow project is a day-to-day path, based on a range of content organised in seven vertical channels: green, mind, fitness, wellness, love, food, style.

• Seven souls with new a multimedia language to get a closer look at issues of current relevance that embrace new trends: from clean living to body positivity, and from utility self-care to functional food.

• The web site dmnow.it: with a highly innovative layout and user experience, starting from the home page, characterised by an impactful slider and a new logo and the main captions. Thanks to a chromatic effect and the original treatment of images, each channel is contained within and distinguished by a different colour.  

• Instagram: in addition to the web site, DMNow has a dedicated Instagram profile @dmnow, that contributes, along with the DMBeauty profile, to enhancing the Donna Moderna Instagram community which, to date, has over 600,000 followers.

• Video classroom: the DMNow offer includes cross-channel content for each subject area. Everyday there will be a 30-minute live video simulcast with classes, available on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, as well as on demand, to access when and how you like on the webs site from the subject playlist where content related to specific topics can also be found. Plus, there are also check lists to buy products or books related to the online.

• The mentors: the video classes are curated by a pool of experts who have made their passions or disciplines a life choice. Among the first to take part will be: Silvia Lanfranchi, mindset coach; Micol Dell’Oro, yoga instructor; Federica Gif, food blogger; Cecilia Zonta, personal trainer; Sara Rezzolla, entrepreneur and creator of zero waste accessories; Elisa Bonandini, image consultant; Giulia Marchesi, psychologist and sex therapist.
  During the video classes participants will be able to talk to and interact with the mentors in a Q&A session social media.

• Podcasts: the DMNow offer will also be enhanced by the addition of a series of podcasts to accompany the users’ daily journey, who at any time can use the content available via audio of the web site of on Spreaker.

• Newsletter: the new features of DMNow will also include a newsletter from Monday to Friday featuring background and advice on beauty, wellbeing and lifestyle.

The new DMNow project has been launched with an advertising campaign developed by Casiraghi Greco& on leading B2B media, print, digital and social and with a video for the new Reel channel on Instagram involving the mentors.

Carla Vanni, director of the Grazia International Network, the global multi-channel system created by the Mondadori Group for the launch of the Grazia brand around the world, has received the “Tao Award Excellence 2020 for Journalism” as part of the Taomoda Awards.

This recognition underlines the special characteristics of an extraordinary journey during which Carla Vanni, after a series of leading roles in Italian magazines, was able to successfully accompany the spread of Grazia also at an international level.

A journey that has enables the Mondadori Group magazine to become, in just a few years, the leading 100% Italian fashion brand, with twenty editions around the world; from Europe to China, and reaching every month an overall community of 15 million readers, with sales of over 10 million copies every month, 35 million unique users and around 20 million followers on social media.

Carla Vanni has been the director of Grazia International Network since 2005. After graduating in law from the University of Milan she began her journalistic career on the fashion staff Grazia, of which she was the editor from 1978 to 2006. Over her career, Carla Vanni has also been the editor of Grazia Casa and editorial director of important magazines, including Marie Claire, Cento Cose Energy, Donna Moderna. Other prices she has received include:  a Montenapoleone d’oro, for best fashion journalist (1970); The Oner, as journalist of the year (1987); the Premio Gullace (1995), “for her constant attention to the problems of women”; the literary prize Castiglioncello Costa degli Etruschi (2001); the Premio Milano for fashion (2003); the Premio Forte dei Marmi Dietro la bellezza (2003); the Premio Fondazione Marisa Bellisario (2003); the Premio Pitti Immagine for her career (2008) and the Mayor of Milan’s Prize (2010) given to women who, thanks to their work, contribute to the development and the life of the city.

The Tao Awards 2020 ceremony was held during the Gala di Taomoda, an international event organised by the Region of Sicily, of which the patron if the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (the Italian Chamber of Fashion) and organised in collaboration with the offices of the regional councillors for Tourism, Sport and Entertainment, the Department of Productive Activities and the Depertment for Cultural Heritage.

GialloZafferano, Italy’s food media brand leader, continues its path of di innovation with new functions to help Italians to cook in an increasingly personalised way.

Every day GialloZafferano enters the homes of millions of people to promptly respond to their needs – from the website to social media and smartspeakers – with a catalogue of 5,500 recipes and 1,300 high-definition videos, from today also “made-to-measure” thanks to artificial intelligence.

“The new tools developed by GialloZafferano confirm the brand’s extraordinary vocation for innovation and capacity to constantly evolve, while always maintaining our focus on the needs of foodlovers,” declared Andrea Santagata, general manager of Mondadori Media. “Underlying these results lies continuous research into people’s tastes and easy to prepare recipes, always tried out in the GialloZafferano kitchens, alongside a specialised digital team, operating 365 days a year, to always be able to respond to users’ requests.”

Now the new homepage of the site, using an advanced machine learning algorithm, will, at any moment, be able to provide up-to-date content based on the most popular search items and personal tastes, in this way being able to offer an even more precise experience. The algorithm will show the recipes of greatest interest in a set period of time, viewable on a carousel “The recipes of the moment” and “Most popular”,and will select recipes in relation to the surfing patterns of each users in “Suggested for you”.

The site’s search engine has also been enhanced so that users can access even more rapidly access the GialloZafferano content of most value in response to searches carried out.

Plus, for the first time, step-by-step recipes in a podcast: from this month 100 top GialloZafferano recipes will be available on all platforms (Spotify, Spreaker, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Deezer), from Bolognese sauce to tiramisù.

“These new solutions confirm the constant attention of our Group to the most innovative and engaging technological developments and, as always, in the context of premium quality and high level of recognition of our bands. We are already working with our “Brand On Solutions” team on the creation of ad hoc branded content for our clients, who will be able to benefit from a perfect synergy between technological efficiency and our enthusiastic and reactive communities,” commented Davide Mondo, chief executive of Mediamond.

GialloZafferano currently reaches an audience of 18 million unique users every month (Source: Audiweb, average Jan-Jun 2020), with an extraordinary total of 10 million hours spent cooking with the site (Source: Audiweb, average Jan-Jun 2020) and 11.7 million fans on social media.

Making its debut this evening, CasaChi is a new social media talk show social conceived by Chi, that every week will bring together special guests in the exclusive salon of the magazine edited by Alfonso Signorini, to follow and discuss the new series of Grande Fratello Vip. Who will win? Who will go to the vote? What dynamic will emerge between the contestants? In each episode CasaChi will play an active role in the debate, with curiosities, behind the scenes features, forecasts and fun.

The CasaChi salon will welcome an alternating series of protagonists from GFVip: from the show’s presenter Alfonso Signorini, to the commentators Antonella Elia and Pupo and contestants from the last series. In the studio will be Chi journalists Azzurra Della Penna, Valerio Palmieri and Gabriele Parpiglia, moderated Gilberto Savini.

Guests of the first two episodes, together with the host Alfonso Signorini his two commentators, will be the winner of the last series Paola Di Benedetto and one of the most-loved couples that were born during the  programme, Luca Onestini and Ivana Mrázová.

The new Chi format will, of course, include unseen backstage footage and a gossip corner, where secrets will be revealed about what is really going on inside and, above all, outside the house.

“CasaChi is a unique opportunity to discover what is really happening behind the scenes of TV’s most popular reality show, also the things that the cameras never show you. We will give people the latest news, previews and scoops about the contestants and you can hear comments and confessions from GFVip live in viva voce from the commentators, the winners and the protagonists of previous series. Only on CasaChi!,” explained Alfonso Signorini, editor of Chi.

CasaChi #GFVip will be available every Tuesday and Thursday on the Facebook and Instagram profiles of Chi, where the brand reaches a community of more than 650,000 followers. Moreover, the social media profiles of the magazine also offer extra content, such as surveys, quizes, stories, behind-the-scenes coverage and video clips with interviews with contestants and the public.

An unmissable appointment for fans and an opportunity to get a close-up look at the show business and entertainment personalities that every week animate the pages of their favourite magazine. The new Chi format will also offer partners new communication opportunities that align with the exclusive world that revolves around Italy’s most widely read people magazine.

The project has been developed thanks to the partnership with Orogel, Italy’s leading producer of frozen vegetables, grown directly by the company’s 1,616 associated farms, operating exclusively in the most fertile areas of Italy. Quality, flavour and wellbeing are the basis of all of the Orogel recipes that allow the contestants of GFVip to enjoy healthy, light and tasty cooking.