Media: Publishing brands

Starting from the 21 February issue, Raffaele Leone will be the new editor of Focus, the Mondadori Group brand that is a point of reference in popular science and entertainment.

Leone will further enhance a successful formula that has made Focus Italy’s most widely-read magazine, thanks to an even broader range of content and a new look at current affairs, with a continuing scientific approach and a rigorous analysis of the facts.

Born in Catania, Leone, who is 58, began his career on the newspaper La Sicilia, before joining the editorial team of the Indipendente. In 1994 he moved to Il Giornale where he covered a number of roles, including news editor, bureau chief at the Rome office and then central managing editor. In 2006 he was appointed deputy editor of the magazine Grazia, before moving one year later to Panorama, firstly as deputy editor in 2007, executive deputy editor in 2009 and editor-in-chief in 2018.

At the same time Jacopo Loredan – that the Mondadori Group wishes to thank for the professionalism, passion and energy  with which he has led the magazine – will take on the role of event and brand development manager.

Following the success of the first edition of Focus Live, which took place last November in collaboration with the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology, this year Focus will take its exclusive formula to other cities in Italy, with the aim of further developing the brand’s presence around the country.

INTERNI, the Mondadori Group interiors and contemporary design magazine, will be present, for the fifth year running, at HOMI (25-28 January 2019), the lifestyle exhibition at the Fiera Milano dedicated to the world of living and personal accessories, with a special space conceived for relaxation, conversation and encounters.

The new INTERNI Café, open to all in Pavilion 7, will be immediately identifiable by the distinctive graphic symbol designed by the well-known advertising creative Lorenzo Marini, who has designed the covers of  the January issue of INTERNI  and the DESIGN INDEX 2019 guide (which will distributed during the entire event).

The space has been furnished by VESPER stools (design Christoph Jenni), TA tables (designer Jeremiah Ferrarese) and STATO (design Christoph Jenni) by COLOS, and VICTORIA GHOST chairs (design Philippe Starck) by KARTELL. For all visitors, the INTERNI Café will propose a bio offer, including fruit salads, and mixed salads, all prepared to order and in line with the philosophy of the space.

Participation at HOMI is just the first of many Italian exhibition events and fairs where INTERNI will be present, confirming its coverage of the sector, not merely as a point of reference for the design community, but also as an important promoter of events both in Italy and abroad. Following events held in Mexico City, Shanghai and Miami, has just ended in London the series of meetings entitled “Project and Destiny: refelections on design and architecture in Italy today”. Organised by INTERNI, together with the Italian Cultural Institute in London and ITA London, these conversations, which have proved immensely popular with the public, have involved some of Italy’s most representative figures from the world of design including, Martino Gamper, Piero Lissoni, Alfonso Femia, Giovanna Castiglioni, who have attempted to shine a light on the role that Italian creativity can play at the international level.

For more information, please go to: www.internimagazine.com

Further success for the Mondadori Group in the digital area as it is confirmed as Italy’s leading publisher in the list drawn up by Comscore. According to the figures for November 2018, the audience of the Mondadori brands reached 30 million unique users per month, an 11% increase on the previous year.

In a market in which the digital population is constantly expanding, Mondadori’s reach is conformed as the most extensive among Italian publishers (75%): with three out of four people visiting the Group’s sites and using a unique offer of quality content.

A breakthrough to which a special contribution has been made by the success of some of Mondadori’s strongest brands, which provide a prompt response to the needs of the population by covering a range of interests in the areas of food, beauty and wellnes.

These include, Giallozafferano, the point of reference for Italian food lovers, with a peak audience of almost 16 million unique users per month; Donna Moderna, which, with over 13 million unique users per month, confirmed its position as the publishing network of reference for women in Italy; Starbene, which, along with Mypersonaltrainer, is the leader in the world of health and wellness, reaching 10 million unique users per month.

Mondadori starts the new year also as the leading publisher on social networks, thanks to a fan base across the Group’s 100 social media properties that have an overall total of 26 million fans on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Grazia, the Mondadori Group magazine edited by Silvia Grilli, is kicking off the new year with an exclusive event The night is Young and a special issue dedicated to the most influential protagonists of the under-26 generation.

The evening organised by the weekly, which is renowned as the interpreter of Italian style and fashion and the most qualified point of reference for Made in Italy,  will take place on 17 January in Milan with the singer and rapper Baby K as the protagonist of a meet & greet with readers, users, followers and fans.

Following this, Baby K will perform an exclusive showcase featuring some of the hits that have generated 16 platinum discs. The new album ‘Icon’, released in November, includes the hits ‘Voglio ballare con te’ feat. Andrè Dvicio, ‘Da zero a cento’ and the latest single ‘Come no’.

To coincide with the event, a special edition of Grazia will be on newsstands dedicated to the talent of new generations, those born between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 2000s: in other words, those who are always connected and without borders.

The cover girl will be Lele Pons, the much-clicked Venezuelan YouTuber (her “Celoso” has had more than 190 million views on YouTube) and star of Instagram with 31 million i followers, as well as being the special guest of the The Night is Young, who will talk to Silvia Grilli about the secrets of her success.

In the issue, on newsstands from 17 January, Grazia readers will find 12 young talents presented by people who know them well and are inspired by them, including, for example, Bebe Vio as seen by the Paralympic athlete Giusi Versace or actress and singer Matilda De Angelis as seen by Giuliano Sangiorgi from Negramaro. But also Spanish photographer Coco Capitan – who has produced advertising campaigns for Gucci interviewed by writer and YouTuber Francesco Sole and the 23-year-old actress Benedetta Porcaroli as seen by her colleague Alice Pagani (both of whom star in the TV series Baby that deals with high school students).

Plus, two exclusive fashion features dedicated to the young generations, with advice about style and elegance and previewing upcoming trends.

With this initiative, Grazia confirms its role as a dynamic contemporary communication platform, present in the publishing scene not only with the magazine (with a readership di 738,000, Source: Audipress 2018/II), on the web (with a monthly average of 3.000,000 unique users, Source Audiweb October 2018) and on social networks (with 10 million people reached, Source Facebook and Instagram Insight, December 2018) but also as a brand that creates content and special events.

The sponsor that have contributed to the realisation of The Night is Young are: Fracomina and milk­_shake.

Riccardo Ruini is to be the new creative director of Icon, the Mondadori Group’s fashion and lifestyle magazine.

Riccardo Ruini began his professional career in advertising, working for leading international agencies. Art Director for the Fendi Group in the mid 1990s, he then went on to oversee iconic campaigns for some of the most prestigious luxury brands, including Bulgari, Gucci and Valentino and curated the art direction of more than ten international magazines, including Vogue Japan and GQ Style UK. During his career Ruini has also collaborated with numerous talents from the worlds of photography, art, cinema and music.

This appointment completes the new team of the magazine led by the editor Andrea Tenerani which has also seen the arrival of Federico Sarica in the role of editor-at-large.

The new formula of Icon, which will make its debut with the March issue, will give pride of place to a more focused presentation of style and Italian savoir-faire, with men and their passions at the centre. More fashion, but also more stories, more background and a more selective approach, in order to give readers a tool to help them find their way in the world of contemporary style.

Altervista, the Mondadori Group platform, leader in Italy in the creation, management and hosting of blogs and web sites, is celebrating its 18^th anniversary. Founded on 20 December 2000 by Gianluca Danesin, currently the CTO of the Mondadori Digital Magazine team, Altervista.org has kept its original mission intact: to enable anyone to open a web site, for free and without specific IT skills.

A simple but, at the time, revolutionary, idea the site’s particularity was to focus on user generated content, anticipating the concepts of sharing and interactivity associated with the Web 2.0. Altervista was thus able to build its success thanks to word-of-mouth and the reliability of the service, responding to a new and widespread need to talk about oneself online.

Altervista has been a web pioneer, able to make the most of the potential from the beginning of the digital economy: from the concept of the long tail, which through diversification makes it possible for content created by users to fill a wide range of market niches, to crowdsourcing made possible by continuous exchange and the contributions of volunteers, right up to revenue sharing, the “win-win” system that gives all bloggers the chance to earn money from advertising.

A sustainable business model that today allows Altervista to differentiate itself from other hosting competitors, feeding a consistent ecosystem of blogs and sites able to generate constant attention to the needs of their creators. The exclusive services offered cover professional free areas (also on mobile), unlimited plugins, automatic monetisation, semantic analysis and site clustering.

A “alternative view” of the world of the Internet, thanks to which the Altervista platform is now a “pillar of the Italian web” which currently has over 600,000 active blogs and wen sites. These include a number of leaders in the various sectors of the blogging community in the country: Ho voglia di Dolce (food), Maestra Mary (parenting/education), Spinoza (satire) and i400 calci (cinema) to name just a few, and with the last two having been a warded a number of times at the ai Macchianera Awards in their categories.

Altervista.org celebrates its 18^th anniversary with an audience of 12.6 million monthly users (Source: Comscore – October 2018) and record earnings for its bloggers, thanks to the introduction of new formats and innovative advertising partnerships, with the increasing use of multimedia.

From January Annalisa Rosso will be the new editor of Icon Design, the upscale magazine of design, architecture and interiors of the Mondadori Group; at the same time Maria Cristina Didero will take on the role of di editor-at-large.

With this new team, Icon Design will cover the world of design in all its varied facets through stories about cutting edge personalities, objects, homes and projects.
A multi-disciplinary and international approach open to the broadest range of issues and aimed at an expanding target of readers and advertisers, who have rewarded a formula that has become a point of reference with excellent results in terms of advertising revenues.

Design journalist and independent curator, Annalisa Rosso has written for and overseen production for numerous national and international titles, including Casa Vogue Brasil, Living, Alla Carta, Wallpaper, Ideat, 032c, Architektur und Wohnen. She led the launch of the new Domusweb designed by Mark Porter in 2017 and has worked as a consultant for numerous brands in the sector.
She has been a guest lecturer at the Design Canberra Festival 2018, the University of Genoa, TEDx Talks, the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai and the Triennale in Milan.
She curated the seventh edition of Operae, the independent design fair in Turin, and the personal exhibition of Valentina Cameranesi in Milan’s 5VIE district, during Miart and the Milano Design Week in 2018.

Maria Cristina Didero is an independent curator, author and freelance journalist. She has worked with national and international institutions and a number of titles, including Vogue, Domus and Icon Design.
Her most recent projects include the exhibition SuperDesign in New York about radical Italian design; one-man show of Erez Nevi Pana entitled Vegan Design – Or The Art of Reduction for the Milan Design Week 2018; Fun House, an anthology dedicated to the Snarkitecture  collective, at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.. During the latest edition of the Design Week in Prague, OKOLO has dedicated and curated an exhibition of her texts, graphically visualised.

On Monday 17 December the  Mondadori Group  will be among the protagonists of the StartupItalia! Open Summit 2018, the event that promotes innovation, exchange and new collaborations between the founders of startups, companies and investors. The Digital Magazines team of Italy’s leading publisher on the web will take part in one-to-one meetings with 10 startups that have distinguished themselves for business ideas and a capacity to compete on the international market.

“Our involvement with StartupItalia! Open Summit 2018 is part of the digital development path adopted by the Mondadori Group,” declared Andrea Santagata, deputy general manager and chief digital officer of the Group’s Magazines Italy area. “We are big believers in innovation and are focused on consolidating out links to the ecosystem of startups by giving an account of our model of the “publisher of the future”: a publisher that is increasingly multimedia and able to stimulate a social relationship with its users. The aim is to continue to enhance our offer also through collaboration with new digital talents that area complementary and synergic with our business model. We are excited to be able to develop a dialogue with emerging new talent and a mutually beneficial exchange in the pursuit of creativity and the realisation of quality content,” Santagata concluded.

#SIOS2018 offers an opportunity for startups to demonstrate their innovation ideas and receive advice and suggestions from managers and professionals on the Group’s Digital Magazines team. The projects developed by the selected startups – distribution services for paid content, video production platforms, for influencer marketing on social networks, advertising solutions and mobile – can find fertile ground for exchange with the established business models of the digital brands of the Mondadori Group, leader in the most valuable vertical segments in the market: from Giallo Zafferano to Grazia, and from Donna Moderna to Studenti.it, Sorrisi and Focus, all of which are points of reference for the enthusiasms and interests of online Italians.

StartupItalia! Open Summit 2018 will also see the brand new Giallo Zafferano apecar which is at the heart of an engagement initiative through which founders and developers will be asked to reveal on post-its the ingredients of success and failures that young entrepreneurs must face. This will give rise to a “recipe for the perfect startup”, which will be shared by Giallo Zafferano on social networks.

The Mondadori Group is Italy’s biggest publisher of magazines and leader also in digital. With the country’s broadest and most diversified offer, thanks to a portfolio of 30 digital brands with an overall monthly audience of 26.5 million unique users and 4.2 million users per day. Leader in the highest value vertical segments, including women, food, wellness and fashion, with standout titles such as Donna Moderna with 13 million unique users, Giallo Zafferano with an audience of 14 million unique users, Starbene with 11 million unique users,  and Grazia with 3 million users (Source: Audiweb Total Audience – September 2018). A digital presence that also includes social networks, where the Group’s brands are present with 88 channels and an audience of 26.4 million followers.

A magazine aimed at all teachers of primary and first level secondary schools, to help them face the new challenges of the classroom in the digital age: this is Focus Scuola, a new monthly for teachers from the Mondadori Group.

Focus Scuola, edited by Sarah Pozzoli, has been conceived as a tool at the service of teachers, to support them in their day-to-day work with pedagogical and didactic advice for “feel better” in in the classroom and to manage classes, develop authoritativeness, control stress, attract and retain pupils’ attention and motivate them to study.

“This new magazine – underlined the editor Sarah Pozzoli – comes fro the experience of Focus Junior which for years with its projects for schools, class visits to the editorial departments and events around the country, is in continuous dialogue with teachers, children and parents. all of these activities have enabled us to gather information and to intercept the great need for support for teachers who increasingly need to know about and try out tools that can help them every day as they propose new, engaging and innovative teaching activities. This is why, in 2017, we launched the Osservatorio Trend Junior which has helped us to look more closely at the younger generations, their parents and teachers, and to understand how to virtuously triangulate these three targets in handling issues such as education and training.

Focus Scuola, which is available every month on subscription, offers background details on the latest scientific and pedagogic research, but also good experimental ideas from Italy and the rest of the world from individual teachers and provides suggestions about innovative methods and the use of technology in the classroom.

Extensive space is also given to the latest scientific news of relevance to schools and norms and regulations from the Ministry of Education, as well as reviews of films, books, exhibitions study tours and new trends in the world of children and teenagers, plus a wealth of ideas for lessons and labs that can be done in class.

An added feature is the inclusion of columns by authoritative exponents from the world of schools such as Marco Rossi Doria, Daniela Lucangeli, Alberto Pellai, Giovanni Biondi, Alex Corlazzoli and teaching kits as supplements to the magazine, produced on the logic of S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).

Focus Scuola is available only on subscription at a cost of €69 (annual subscription, 10 issues) or €99 (a two-year subscription, 20 issues). During the whole of December it will also be possible to subscribe for a year to  both Focus Scuola and Focus Junior at the special price of €79.

In the first issue, available from this week, among a wide range of issues there is a cover dossier on strategies for communicating with parents and an interview with the philosopher Umberto Galimberti.

2018 has been a year full of initiatives and events for the digital brands of the Mondadori Group, which confirms its position as Italy’s leading publisher on the web with an audience of 26.5 million unique users every month and 4.2 million daily users (Source: Audiweb Total Audience – September 2018).

From Giallo Zafferano to Studenti.it, Donna Moderna to Starbene Grazia and Nostrofiglio, Mondadori’s digital portfolio offers the country’s richest and most varied range. A model based on innovation and continuous expansion that leverages engagement and emotional communication with readers, with the aim of transforming traditional magazines and web sites into multimedia brands.

As the leader in the highest value sectors of the market, including women, food, health and parenting, Mondadori’s 30 digital brands are a point of reference for the passions of online Italians and are able to respond to the needs and interests of users – who are increasingly the protagonists of content – and advertisers, and now well-established as synonyms of authoritativeness also in the context of B2B.

This is also demonstrated by the new multi-subject communication campaign, which celebrates with visuals and emotional headlines the particular strengths of Giallo Zafferano, Donna Moderna and Grazia. These three brands each communicate appeal, beauty and style, offering advertisers the opportunity of reaching millions of users and readers thanks to the visibility of their channels, where they stand out with monthly audiences of, respectively, 14 million, 13 million and 3 million unique users (Source: Audiweb Total Audience – September 2018).

The campaign, conceived and developed by the agency Casiraghi Greco&, has been planned across sector-focused print and digital media and foresees out-of-home advertising activities in strategic areas of the city of Milan and digital out-of-home advertising at Linate airport and key points in the metropolitan area using the 11 plants of the iDD Magazine circuit: from Piazza Gae Aulenti to Via Tortona, Piazza San Babila and CityLife.

The Mondadori Group confirms its role as the primary interlocutor for the digital world also at the leading B2B events. The Group was present at the latest edition of the IAB Forum with a stand dominated by a large central carousel, thematic activities and two workshops in which Giallo Zafferano and Grazia Factory were able to present their respective business models to leading players in the sector: a “merry-go-round of emotions” which, in line with the communicative mindset of the Group’s digital properties, generated over 1,500 contacts in the two days of the fair.

Giallo Zafferano, recognised by the ComScore report “The Food Sector in Italy 2018” as the brand in the Food Lifestyle category with the highest reach compared with the top European sites, and was also the special partner of the second edition of Netcomm Focus Food, a key event for the digital evolution of the Food & Grocery sector

The very recent Giallo Zafferano–branded ApeCar has also made a tour of the most important media centres in Milan, offering breakfast ot some 1,200 advertising professionals

On 17 December the brands of the Mondadori Group will facilitate exchange between emerging digital talents during the StartupItalia! Open Summit 2018, the event that  promotes the sharing of ideas and new collaborations between the founders and developers of start-ups, companies and investors.