Italian brands

Some 20 million Italians between the ages of 18 and 54 follow at least one influencer. Of these, 48% follow a macro-influencer; a category that includes not only individuals, but also publishing brands with stand-out social media profiles in their communities of reference and recognised as authoritative in nine specific areas: health and wellbeing, families and children, entertainment, technology and science, beauty and personal care, fashion, food and beverages, travel and tourism, cars and motorcycles.

And it is precisely these macro-influencers that are at the heart of the survey “Italians & Influencers” conducted by Buzzoole, InfoValue and Mondadori Media, aimed at examining more closely the views and opinions of Italians regarding an increasingly significant category in consumer behaviour.

In particular, it looks more closely at the relationship between Italians and influencers and publishing brands, with regard to the social media presence and the type of role that they play in entertainment and users buying habits.

The first interesting element is the frequency with which users consult their profiles: 37% claim to follow them every day, while another 37% check in every 2-3 days.

Why do users follow influencers?

For the advice they give (54%, above all for matters related to food) or for their expertise in specific areas (51%, technology and automotive) or because they are considered models of reference to identify with (19%, fashion and families).

At the top of the list for renown on social media there is Chiara Ferragni (mentioned by 85% of the sample), followed by GialloZafferano (72%) and Benedetta Rossi (71%).

As part of the study, emphasis was given to the role of macro-influencers in buying behaviour, with a different focus depending on the sector of interest for users. This showed that they can play the role of a “tutor” that explains a product (for 54% of the interviewees), especially in the areas of food beauty, a discoverer able to introduce new products (for 47%) for tech and beauty, a friend who can say where and when to buy something (41%), above all for fans of cars and motorcycles, or, also, an outstanding trendsetter (27%).

There is, therefore, a clear recognition of the commercial function: an expectation that influencers and publishing brands can provide information on a wide range of product types and become an “advisor” that in every situation can play a determining role.

Have looked at the role of macro-influencers in buying behaviour, the survey then examined their level of incidence in buying propensity: 85% of Italians claim to take the opinions of influencers into consideration when buying a product.

The study also looked in detail at how many purchases are “actually” made on the basis of the advice of influencers. Over the last year around half of the interviewees bought an average of 2 products or services recommended by influencers or editorial brands on social media: beauty, food, fashion and technology being the most influenced shopping categories.

An examination of buying intention is single areas, showed that in first place among the preference of Italians were the profiles of GialloZafferano (89%) in the food & beverage sector and Mypersonaltrainer for products related to health and wellness.

“The study conducted in along with Mondadori Media and InfoValue,” declared Gianluca Perrelli, CEO of Buzzoole, “has clearly demonstrated the complexity of a now consolidated phenomenon that involves millions of people. In addition, it has highlighted the multiple roles that Creators can have for Italians, not just as repeaters of messages, but as key elements in the purchasing process.”

“Brands remain among the main influencers of consumer buying habits, and central in the discovery of new trends and tendencies,” declared Andrea Santagata, General Manager of Mondadori Media. “The research clearly shows how some of them, the more vertical with a language and approach that is close to users, have maintained, and even reinforced, this role, also in the increasingly important social media environment. I think that it is key for a brand in social media to satisfy specific need, with a view to providing users with help and support.”

As regards the platforms used, Instagram emerged as the social media platform par excellence (67%), followed by Facebook (59%) and YouTube (53%). The younger target follow on TikTok (9%) and 4% on Twitch.

This quantitative survey involved over 1,500 interviewees, representative of Italian web users between the ages of 18 and 54, and examined 9 topics of main interest, arranged by socio-demographic profiles, with a special focus on female targets.

“Italians & Influencers” was conducted in the context of the WeTalks project: a permanent observation laboratory through which Mondadori Media addresses companies interested in information about the dynamics of consumer behaviour. The complete results of the survey are available on www.buzzoole.com and www.wetalks.it.

Icon will be on newsstands from tomorrow with an issue entitled No pictures please!, dedicated to the evolution of our relationship with images. This issue of the magazine, edited by Andrea Tenerani, will include over 200 pages of fashion, beauty and news, as well as special features and four exclusive cover stories.

The protagonist of the male lifestyle and fashion brand of the Mondadori Group is the football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a timeless icon, on and off the pitch, in an exclusive portrait for Icon: “From the very beginning, I told myself that I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. Successful or unsuccessful, I waould remain who I am. For me, when you are so original, in the end, people recognise that, and they love you for it. The key to it all is authenticity,” the champion says.

The February issue of Icon also features I Negramaro, photographed by Giampaolo Sgura to mark the release of their latest album Contatto: “In recent years the meaning of this word has changed. When we talk about contact, we are usually talking about an email, a telephone number to reach out without ever touching. And during this pandemic it’s become something else again; a dream, the word is now almost dreamlike,” explained Giuliano Sangiorgi.

Plus, the international face of Dave Franco, actor and director, brother of James, making his directorial debut with the horror film The Rental: “I wasn’t only inspired by my paranoia about home sharing. I also thought about the period that the United States is going through in which we are divided, isolated and nobody trusts anybody.”

And finally, the future, football, AC Roma, Italy, the injuries and recovery of Nicolò Zaniolo, the young champion of Roma and the Italian national team, who talks about himself for the first time to Icon: “Roma has changed my life, in every sense. It took me on when I was just a boy and is making me into a man. It has given me the opportunity toplay football and given me all this popularity. How could I not love it?”

There is also the return of Padiglione Icon: a special feature, in the pages of the magazine and on dedicated social media profiles dedicated to a selection of excellence in fashion, with what’s new and representative items from the new collections. In the new issue, on newsstands until the middle of March, space is also given to engines in Icon Wheels: 10 pages that focus on the most exclusive new products from the world of cars and motorcycles, previews, interviews to the protagonists and the most iconic and desirable models.

With sport in our hearts

From this month, Icon also launches a special project entitled Con lo sport nel cuore, (With sport in our hearts) in collaboration with the Fondazione IEO-CCM, the body that supports clinical and experimental research and assistance for patients with cancer and heart disease cat the Istituto Europeo di Oncologia and the Centro Cardiologico Monzino, with the aim of identifying the best treatment for patients and to support new and innovative projects.

For the occasion a limited-edition Icon T-shirt has been produced, in collaboration with Roy Roger’s, to support the Centro Cardiologico Monzino.

After Claudio Marchisio, Nicolò Zaniolo will be the exceptional testimonial of the initiative which, during the year, will involve a number of protagonists from the world of sport in order to promote on the pages of Icon the research of an example of Italian excellence in the health sector.

The Centro Cardiologico Monzino is Europe’s leading hospital for the treatment, research and prevention of cardiovascular disease and is internationally recognised for the level of specialisation and innovative therapies. Also on the front line is Roy Roger’s, a brand of Manifatture Sevenbell, which offers its experience in the clothing sector to the service of a good cause.

The T-shirt will be on sale on www.royrogers.it and the revenues from the sales will be entirely devolved to applied research projects on more serious heart and vascular diseases and orphans of resolutive therapies, where only research can make a difference.

Focus, the Mondadori Group brand, leader in popular science and a point of reference for science and current affairs, is launching new initiatives for students, teachers and users in 2021.

Next month sees the launch of Focus Academy, a new project by Focus and Focus Storia aimed at attracting kids from second level high schools to science and history with online training activities, in line with the alternating school/work programmes outlined in the relevant convention.

At the heart of this year’s programme are the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030, a 360° awareness building plan that will involve the magazine, with special detailed coverage, the web, with the multimedia content of Focus.it, and, from February, a series of monthly webinars open to all with scientists and experts, to stimulate debate and develop awareness among the young about the actions necessary for our future and based around six issues identified by the editorial team: the risks to biodiversity; health; discrepancies in the distribution of energy; more sustainable cities; food for all; the risks to oceans; climate change.

“For Focus adopting the UN goals is only natural, given that they are about saving our planet, scientific and technological development, and the quality of human life,” explained Raffaele Leone, editor of Focus and Focus Storia. “The issues we have selected are part of the magazine’s DNA given our long-standing support for environmental sustainability, medical and technological research and the protection of biodiversity. That all of this coincides with the launch of the Academy is an added value. Kids are extremely aware of these issues. Indeed, they are an authentic driving force for governments and research. They expect that we adults commit to reducing our environmental impact and outline new ways of pursuing these aims. To discuss these issues with them will provide an added stimulus also for us.”

The classes that enrol at the Academy will connect once a week, for four weeks, with the editorial teams of Focus and Focus Storia, to experience, live, the creation of a popular science and history magazine. The students will be actively involved and will have the opportunity to try writing articles or conducting interviews that will then be selected by the team for eventual publication in subsequent issues of Focus.

Also Focus Junior, the brand for children between the ages of 8 and 12 who want to have fun discovering the world in a new and intelligent way, has adopted the UN Agenda by proposing for the Focus Junior Academy digital workshops dedicated to eight of the 2030 goals: health and wellbeing; quality education; clean and accessible energy; industry, innovation and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities; underwater life; life on earth; and the partnership for goals.

The project, now in its third year, is designed to provide additional tools to assist the syllabus of primary and middle schools, in line also with recent directives which from this year include inter-disciplinary civic education. During the encounters, pupils will work in class on a detailed multimedia journalistic project with the editorial team that will be published on the Focus Junior web site and magazine. The January, February and March appointments of the Focus Junior Academy are already fully booked, with the participation of more than 150 pupils for each workshop.

Finally, for teachers, a series of webinars and monographs have been put together by Focus Scuola, the monthly magazine that supports primary and middle school teachers with the best teaching advice and suggestions to look more closely at the issues related to the UN Agenda 2030 and innovative teaching practices, though ideas, and best practice from experts in the sector.

“In this period of great uncertainty and social upheaval, Focus Junior has decided to reinforce its role in support of children and early teens in an effort to accompany them in their progress towards being future citizens,” said Sarah Pozzoli, editor of Focus Junior and Focus Scuola. “Our objective has become that of trying to ensure that education goes beyond knowledge and skills and is a method for creating a new forma mentis in order to imagine a more sustainable world, that is also more peaceful and free of social, gender and racial discrimination, in line with the guidelines of the UN’s Agenda 2030. And we will do this in our usual style and learning-by-doing approach, while stimulating curiosity and a sense of irony.”

This is how the Focus system is further reinforcing its offer in the education sector: from collaboration with institutions and companies, to school-based projects involving students, families, schools and teachers, and successfully developing activities and events that speak directly to the protagonists of the world of education thanks to an innovative and engaging didactic vision.
Focus is Italy’s most widely read magazine, with a total audience of 7 million readers and users (Source: Nielsen media impact data fusion, April 2020) and 2.9 million followers on social media channels (Source: Shareablee, November 2020).
Focus Junior is a point of reference in the world of kids, with an average monthly circulation of 100,000 copies (Source: Ads, Jan-Sep 2020), 589,000 unique users per month on its web site (Source: Audiweb, Jan-Oct 2020) and a community of 140,000 fans on social media (Source: Shareablee, November 2020).

For information and enrolments:

https://www.focus.it/education/academy/focus-academy-n

https://www.focusjunior.it/progetti-scuola-primaria/focus-junior-academy-scuola-di-giornalismo-con-focus-junior/

On newsstands from today Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni Cucina, a new monthly supplement to Italy’s most widely read weekly, produced with the exclusive collaboration of the website of GialloZafferano, the food media brand that is a point of reference for Italians in the kitchen.

Every month Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni Cucina will offer readers 50 fast and east recipes, explained step-by-step, in the classic GialloZafferano style. Each issue will feature on the cover a TV personality, or a star from the world of music or the cinema, who will share with readers their own specialities in the kitchen. Plus, starters, main course, fish and eggs, tasty ideas with vegetables side dishes, as well as chocolate desserts, creams and fruit. And not forgetting advice on how to vary dishes with alternative ingredients and on easy storage.

“Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni Cucina brings together two worlds much loved by the public, entertainment and cooking, with the aim of giving our readers even more service content, thanks to the experience of GialloZafferano, while maintaining a central focus on quality content, new ideas within the reach of everyone and entertainment for the whole family,” explained Aldo Vitali, the editor of Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni.

The first issue features the Neapolitan actor and director Vincenzo Salemme, with his recipe for spaghetti with tomatoes and basil. “A dish that only seems simple, but the requires the use of high quality, fresh ingredients,” says Salemme. Adding that, “Though I am not a chef, I kow how prepare food. And I like to eat well.” 

Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni is the brand leader in the world of entertainment, with a total audience of over 5.1 million readers and users (Source: Nielsen Media Impact data fusion, May 2020) and more than 900,000 fan (Source: Shareablee, December 2020), thanks to a system that ranges from the magazine, to the web site, social media, and events such as Sorrisi Live, a programme of appointments with leading figures from the entertainment world live on social media every Wednesday, which, since the launch in October, has reached a total of almost  quasi 4 million users. Forthcoming guests include, the actor Serena Rossi on 13 January and the singers Emma and Alessandra Amoroso on 20 January.
The editorial offer of Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni is completed by the supplements Storie di fede, which covers issues related to religion with exclusive stories; Oroscopo, a monthly overview of what is written in the stars, Enigmistica, with 100 games including crosswords, puzzles, sudoku and much more, and special collections of CDs, DVDs, books and gifts, with 2.7 million add-on products sold in 2020.

The launch of Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni Cucina, on newsstands from today with a cover price of  €0.50 plus the weekly, will be supported by a  TV commercial, planned on Mediaset channels.

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.

Icon Design, the Mondadori Group’s upscale architecture and interior design magazine which, in just three years, has become a point of reference in the world of design trends, is evolving and re-launching on the occasion of the Milan design Week 2019 with a new formula.

The new Icon Design edited by Annalisa Rosso, with Maria Cristina Didero in the role of editor-at-large, will devote more attention to the people on the periphery of the design world, in particular the inhabitants of the homes featured in the magazine, conversations and exchanges between the different personalities that give life to a design project.

“It will be an inclusive, open and international magazine. The image we have selected fro the cover, taken in an apartment in Milan’s Torre Velasca, is a manifesto, a synthesis of freedom, energy and innovation. The same vibe one feels at the Furniture Fair during the Milan Design Week, the city where we are based, have deep roots and from where we want to speak to and interact with the world, enabling the emergence of a range of voices, inspirations and provenances  that characterise the pages of the new Icon Design,” declared Annalisa Rosso, editor-in-chief of Icon Design.

Entirely bilingual, in Italian and English, and redesigned by Frank Studio, the new Icon Design reflects the cosmopolitan community that surrounds contemporary design and language, providing an account of what’s happening in the world from a range of particular perspectives.

In the issue of 6 April, entitled The Aesthetic of Freedom – L’Estetica della Libertà, Humberto Campana, with photographer Stefano Ferroni, has produced the main story which is about the Foundation created together with his brother Fernando in Brazil, in order to make a significant contribution to the improvement of the villages surrounding Sao Paolo. Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, who is the curator of the first project by Yona Friedman, recently presented in a Miami, reports on a conversation with the great architect, born in 1923. While Beatrice Galilee interviews Shohei Shigematsu, in 2008 the youngest partner of the OMA studio, and now directing the headquarters in New York.

Each issue will focus on a different subject: in May America, in June contemporary art, and in July and August Japan.

Among new columns, The Design Marathon will each month examine in more detail at an international Design Week. After Italy, and Milan, to which a number of features are included in the new issue, we will move to the ICFF in New York. Don’t skip the adv, edited by Simona Angioni, will take a broader look at image with a discussion about advertising from the perspective of the creators. Meanwhile, Postcards will provide a brand new vision of places and cities through the pictures shot by well-known individuals from the international world of design.

Also the site has a new look, with a visual appearance in line with  the innovation of the brand, and conceived for users who are always on the move in the urban space. Social media in general and Instagram in particular, offer an additional opportunity to talk about companies in the sector, new products and the most exclusive events in a fresh and immediate language.

A cross-over, international and open approach to different issues, will enable Icon Design to address a much wider audience of readers and advertisers. The magazine’s new formula, becoming a point of reference in the segment with 10 issues per year, has ensured significant advertising sales, with a total of 120 ad pages out of a total foliation of 426 pages.

With a circulation of 90,000 copies, Icon Design will reinforce its distribution also in qualifying locations, such as design and interiors showrooms, the SEA lounges at Milan’s Linate and Malpensa airports, upscale hotels, Mondadori bookstores, and abroad on newsstands and in the airports of the leading capitals of design, including New York, Miami, Paris, Basel, Berlin and  Monaco, as well as at important sector trade fairs.

The launch will also be accompanied by an advertising campaign planned across the main daily newspapers and in iDD Magazine, the DOOH (Digital out of home) circuit, which combines advertising with the editorial content of Mondadori’s lifestyle titles.

Icon Design will also play a leading role in the upcoming Design Week with the third edition of Icon Design Talks,  from 8 to 13 April in Milan: with a cycle of conferences, master-classes  and debates, featuring architects, designers and professionals who, through their efforts, work to redefine the relationship between people and cities and to identify our future needs and necessities.

Giallozafferano, the Mondadori Group magazine created by Italy’s leading cooking web site, is celebrating its second anniversary and from Saturday 16 March will be out with a new look and new content.

“Two years ago Giallozafferano first hit the newsstands: the first magazine to have ben created from a web site. And thanks to the combination of two worlds we managed to produce a magazine with a unique character that was highly distinctive compared with the existing offer. And the public took to it immediately. Now, we want to give our readers something new in order to celebrate together and to thank them,” declared Laura Maragliano, editor of Giallozafferano.

Giallozafferano will continue every month to deliver cooking in the hands of the readers through its unmistakable offer of recipes within the reach of everyone, and now enhanced with bigger and more detailed photographs, with new typefaces, more white space and a more ordered use of colour across the different sections.

Also the content will be expanded with the introduction of new columns:

– Healthy eating: information about food, seasonal ingredients, and suggestions for healthier and lighter cooking methods;

– Bottled pleasure: to discover the right combinations with the best labels of wine and beer available on the;

– The Giallo school: even more sweet and savoury specialities explained with step-by-step photographs, in the characteristic Giallozafferano style, with indications about cuts of meat and fish, advice on entertaining and do-it-yourself, as well as a focus on kitchen objects, utensils, and the latest generation appliances.

At the heart of the magazine are the faces of the web site, Manuel, for quick and ethnic meals, Giovanni, for traditional fare, Aurora, for vegetarian dishes, who in every issue will face a different culinary challenge, for which the readers can vote on the site or on the app.

For the launch of the new Giallozafferano an advertising campaign has been planned across different media with TV commercials, on Mediaset channels, Fox and Discovery, radio commercials on the R101 and Radio Monte Carlo stations and a press campaign on Mondadori magazines.

The Mondadori Group’s food system features an offer that covers all segments of the cooking sector: from Giallozafferano to historic titles such as Sale&Pepe, with the Cookery School, and Cucina Moderna, as well as CookAround. A portfolio of multi-channel brands that reach a market share in terms of circulation of over 41% of the segment and an overall total audience of more than 16 million contacts, of which over 1.8 million readers per month (Mediamond calculations based on data from Audipress 2018/III, Audiweb 2.0 media Sept-Nov 2018, circulation data ADS Jan-Dec 2018).

Icon, the Mondadori Group’s magazine for today’s man dedicated to fashion and lifestyle, from Friday 8 March will be on newsstands with a new look and renewed content, with even more attention to image, style and the quality for which it has always been known.

Under the leadership of editor Andrea Tenerani and the new team that has seen the arrival of Federico Sarica in the role of editor-at-large and the creative director Riccardo Ruini, Icon offers content that ranges from fashion to beauty, and takes an all-round look at male passions and enthusiasms, using images and stories able to capture the interests and habits of the modern man.

The result is an upscale product dedicated to men constantly on the look out for style and inspiration, a point of reference for lifestyle and Made in Italy.

“With the new Icon we are opening up our pages and our social media channels to an even more focused account of Italian excellence  and know-how, a chain of production and thinking that the largest part of the global market looks to in the search for quality,” declared Andrea Tenerani, editor of Icon. “We will do this by each month providing – in images and words –  an account of what inspires us, and offering our readers a moodboard. And always keeping in mind a very precise vision:  to blur boundaries and rigidities, and to try to blend the classic and the contemporary, fashion and society, pleasure and rigour.”

The new Icon will also dedicated extensive space to the most iconic personalities from the world of international entertainment, with interviews and photographic features shot exclusively by some of the the great masters of photography.

This month’s issue will have two covers dedicated to two actors Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Vincent Cassel, immortalised respectively by da Mario Sorrenti and Michel Comte as well as articles by prestigious contributors including Marco Missiroli, Mariarosa Mancuso, Chiara Beria di Argentine.

AN ENTIRELY NEW STYLE

The changes in the new Icon start from the paper chosen for the magazine which an increased weight and enhanced whiteness. flicking through the magazine, readers will find new columns and sections, starting from Inventario: a rich concentration of news, short interviews, still lifes and stories about products, personalities and cultural consumption, with a special emphasis on the world of beauty.

Completely new is Wheels & Watches, a monographic section of the magazine that will provide an elegant glance at the world of cars and watches, two big male passions to which 15 pages, rich with fashion photos and lifestyle, will be dedicated.

More wide-ranging news and information will feature in Icon Guide, a new column that will enable readers to keep up to date with what’s new in technology, travel, hotels, food & beverages, cinema, TV, books and much more.

The new approach of Icon will also be characterised by Icon Report, an editorial project focused on the luxury sector and which will inaugurate the first issue with a cover story dedicated to the Hedi Slimane revolution. This 24-page insert, with special paper and in tabloid format, will feature extensive background detail and interviews, as well as a focus on the latest trends in the market, the protagonists who are delineating new business developments and an observatory of fashion school talents. Inserted in the inside back cover of Icon, it will also have a special distribution at the country’s most prestigious fashion, design and journalism schools.

NEW FEATURES ALSO ON DIGITAL

The restyling will also involve iconmagazine.it, with a new design approach that will enhance photo and video quality and immersive formats conceived for mobile and social media. The content will continue to focus on style guides and consumption for the man of today and tomorrow, with the most exclusive fashion, beauty, grooming and accessories.

Meanwhile, cars will be the protagonists of Icon Wheels which, from the middle of March, will be the new area of iconmagazine.it dedicated to aspirational and luxury cars and style on two wheels, with an editorial vocation able to combine usefulness and ideas, thanks to which, brands can become a central and dynamic part of the story through native advertising and branded content.

The two continuously growing social media channels, Instagram and Facebook, will alternate stop motion, short video, animated gifs and photo galleries, with cover stories and exclusive content dedicated to new products, emerging brands and the most exclusive events.

ADVERTISING

The advertising market has responded enthusiastically to the appointment of Andrea Tenerani as the editor of Icon. In fact, the new issue will feature 90 pages of advertising, 30% more than 2018. The new, contemporary and innovative, projects, will be an additional tool with which to interact with clients, also from outside the sector.

With a total circulation of 110,000 copies (Source: publisher’s figures), the new Icon will enjoy reinforced distribution in qualified locations with big impact spaces inside Italy’s main airports and railway stations, as well as in upscale hotels, the sales points of the Italian Chamber of Buyers and the Mondadori Stores.

Icon is also distributed internationally in Brazil, China, South Korea, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and Taiwan.

The launch will also be accompanied by an advertising campaign planned on daily newspapers and on iDD Magazine, the DOOH (Digital Out of home) circuit, which brings together advertising with the editorial content of Mondadori’s lifestyle titles.

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.