Business

Focus, the Mondadori Group magazine that is a point of reference in popular science and entertainment, from Thursday 21 February will be available to the public in markedly renewed form and content.

The aim of the monthly, edited by Raffaele Leone, will be to further develop the successful formula that has made it Italy’s most widely read magazine, which boasts a combination of 5.7 million readers and users (based on data from Audipress 2018.2 and Audiweb 2.0 September 2018), as well as 1.7 million fans on social networks.

Starting from the cover, Focus readers will be surprised by the many changes in the layout and content. First of all they will notice the new masthead which, for the first time, features a larger red logo: a decision that will guarantee the brand greater relevance.

Thanks to an elegant look and an identity as leader, the magazine will be even more stimulating, and targeted at readers that are aware, educated, curious and “want to know more”.

The new Focus has a mission to surprise page after page, investigating the science and knowledge that surrounds us, and represented in a captivating, accurate, rigorous, original and unusual way.

The opening pages of the magazine will be devoted to the column Prisma: di tutto un po’ (Prisma: a little of everything), an authentic showcase of high level content, from regular features to new sections, such as “Il caro estinto” (Dearly departed), “Cogli l’etimo” (Catch the meaning) and many others.

The articles will not only deal with science, nature and technology, but will also take a closer look at current affairs, but always with the scientific and analytical approach to the facts that is typical of Focus. Space will also be given to art, with a column edited by Vittorio Sgarbi that, starting from single work, will develop an analysis of an entire artistic period. Background detail will be provided by Focus Dossier, three articles aimed at examining, in an unusual and detailed way, the issue featured on the cover.

Focus finally also re-confirms its primacy in the development of interactive content and experiences thanks to the ongoing reinforcement of Augmented Reality: each month the magazine will have a fixed appointment with readers in page not to be read but to be “listened to”. An innovative function that will further diversify that range of extras usable through the dedicated app, available for free from the AppStore and Google Play: navigable 360° photos, 3D graphics and renderings, timelapse and 4K videos, and much more.

The new magazine will form the nucleus of an articulated multimedia ecosystem across different in able to transform readers and users into authentic “inhabitants” of the Focus world: from the web site to the TV channel, and from social networks to events aimed at consolidating the brand’s presence around the country.

Among the most important of these Focus Live, an engagement with the great issues and personalities of knowledge which, during the first edition, which took place between 8 and 11 November 2018, attracted over 15,000 visitors to the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia in Milan, and that in 2019 will take its exclusive formula to two other cities in Italy, Genoa and Turin.

To mark the launch of the new Focus a special print-run (+20%) of magazine has been planned, along with a communication campaign run by Hunbranded that, through the use of visuals and captivating and amusing  headlines, highlights the brand’s contribution to “getting the world into focus”  in all its vastness and complexity.

The campaign has been planned on print media and the web, radio and TV, trade channels, sales outlets and on social networks, and will support both the March and April issues.

Grazia, the Mondadori Group weekly edited by Silvia Grilli and point of reference for fashion and a voice for news-related issues, presents Future – Made in Grazia, a collectors’ edition entirely dedicated to the future: what fashion, art, design, technology, architecture has in store for us, and the new scenarios that characterise all aspects of our lives.

After having celebrated Italian talent and beauty in the previous collectors’ issue, this new special  edition looks at the future through the words and images of some of the most innovative, experimental and visionary protagonists. A splendid coffee table book, in Italian and English, available from newsstands and selected bookshops from 19 February in Italy, in major European capitals and in New York.

“The world around us has changed very rapidly,” observes Silvia Grilli in her editorial. “We are both players and spectators of the digital revolution that is transforming our lives. Human intelligence is no longer exclusive and is ceding space to artificial intelligence. Female and male are losing their monopoly as non-binary emerges, the third sex option already on enrolment forms in American schools allowing non-binary people who do not identify as female or male, or feel that they are a combination of both.”

But that’s not all. Beauty, also for models, will increasingly be less a question of proportions and much more to do with commitment and activism, as discussed by two protagonist like Ruth Bell and Nicole Atieno. Women will finally have to claim full autonomy, as the great Serbian artist Marina Abramovic says. Meanwhile, the cinema will increasingly engage with civil rights issues, as the Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins suggests. And a new ecological consciousness will develop through brand new projects to protect the environment, as the environmental artist  Anne de Carbuccia  explains in her intense reportage.

Also the spaces and objects of our life will change. As Carlo Ratti, one of the great scholars of innovation as applied to urban spaces explains, the ideal city will be one where allotments and gardens will replace car parks. Design materials will be cultivated as living organisms and no longer as industrial products, as the international designer Patricia Urquiola shows. While art will explore the imaginations of black artists, of all genders, that until now have not received the recognition they deserve, as can be seen from the work of painter Elizabeth Colomba.

But what are we to do with all this future? Will we be able to handle our second identities constructed for the digital communities where we have found an escape from routine? What will happen to our data, our videos, our photos, all of which will remain forever in the endless ocean of the web? Will we be able to control artificial intelligence? And where will the new limits be in a real world that wants to erect walls but on the web knows no frontiers?

These and other questions are addressed by the protagonists of Future – Made in Grazia, with stories, interviews and stunning images able to give us an advance peek at the great revolutions of a future that is very near and affects us all.

Published in Italy since 1938, Grazia is today the only  100% Italian fashion magazine distributed around the world, from France to Great Britain, and from Mexico to China and Australia. It is a brand that has managed to accompany generations of women thanks to a unique formula that combines  fashion, beauty and current affairs. News, investigations and background on issues of the greatest interest, along with exclusive features, a visionary style in the shots of great photographers and interviews with world-famous personalities, thanks to an ongoing dialogue with major players on the international scene and a privileged relationship with celebrities, top models and designers.

Focus Junior, the Mondadori Group brand that is a point of reference for the world of children and kids, is launching Focus Junior Academy: a project for primary and middle schools featuring free teaching laboratories introducing journalism with the aim of bringing pupils closer to the world of publishing and news.

“Following the launch of Focus Scuola, the new practical review for teachers, we are opening the doors of the editorial department of Focus Junior to children and kids during school hours to offer a fun but realistic experience of what they learn in the classroom,” said the editor of Focus Junior Sarah Pozzoli. 

This initiative will further strengthen the role of the Focus Junior brand in the educational area: from collaboration with institutions and companies to didactic programmes aimed at engaging students and parents, schools and teachers, with a wide range of activities and events that speak to the protagonist of the world of education with an innovative and appealing educational vision.

A press, digital and social campaign has been planned to support the launch of Junior Academy.

From February, in line with the brand’s philosophy of “having fun while discovering the world”, Focus Junior Academy will offer every week the opportunity for a class to visit the editorial department of Focus Junior in the Mondadori Building and to meet the editor and journalists to understand how the team works and its internal organisation. The pupils will get a “hands-on” look at the fundamentals of journalism: how to write an article, the selection of photos and images and how to lay out a magazine, the news will then be published on the web site and on social media.

From 5 W to the importance of sources and the issue of fake news, and from the sharing of a post on social media to the selection of images and headlines, the Focus Junior Academy laboratories will offer students an interactive learning experience that will enable them to try out team-working and experience the key moments in a day in the life of an editorial department.

Aspiring journalist will also have the chance to conduct interviews with “subject experts” (science, history, technology, etc.), who will make themselves available in the editorial department of Focus Junior and to meet personally the students and respond to their questions and satisfy their curiosities.

The participants will also be able to take part in the page layout of their “little magazine”, that will also be published on web site focusjunior.it in the section dedicated to schools and re-launched on the social channels of Focus Junior with the hashtag #JuniorReporter.

At the end of the lab, the pupils will receive a “Junior Reporter” certificate, while their teachers will receive a “Become a journalist” kit to continue the work done during the lab also in the classroom.

To book a Focus Junior Academy teaching laboratory, interested teachers should write to the editorial department at focusjunior@focusjunior.it.

Launched on 3 February with live social coverage of the party organised by Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni and Grazia at the Hotel Royal in Sanremo, which involved the competing artists and many celebrities, the week of the 69^th edition of the Festival ended with great success for Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni.

Thanks to the initiatives and special content dedicated to the event, the Mondadori Group brand confirmed its leadership position in the world of entertainment, with a record of audience and engagement on the site and on social networks. The traditional presence of Sorrisi at Sanremo, which involves the transfer to the Ligurian coastal town of the magazine’s newsroom, this year transformed the area designated as its headquarters into an authentic lounge with an annexed recording studio, reinforcing the digital coverage during the entire Festival: over 500 items on all the platforms, with 140 videos, 35 live social events and 230 live stories on Instagram.

The Sorrisi.com site, in addition to the advance traditional publication of the lyrics of the songs and the official videos of the acts in competition, progressively collected the reactions and comments, as well as the week’s most significant and moving photos and videos. On the debut evening of 5 February at the Ariston theatre alone, Sorrisi.com saw a 125% increase in the number of sessions compared with 2018, whereas, across the whole week the site recorded more than 2 million sessions (Source: Google Analytics), an increase of 136% compared with the previous year.

The numbers were excellent also on social networks which in the period from 4 to 10 February reached 2.8 million people, +59% compared with 2018, with a peak increase in engagement on Instagram, that was up +61% on last year. The live morning breakfasts on Facebook with the editor Aldo Vitali along with artists in competition such as Anna Tatangelo, Irama, Francesco Renga, Achille Lauro and Il Volo, were followed by a total of over one and a half million people. Exclusive content included, the daily video-diaries from the Festival of Il Volo and Federica Carta & Shade.

Over the course of the week all of the artists and guests of the Festival passed by the Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni lounge, giving live interviews on social media, like the exclusives with Eros Ramazzotti and Luis Fonsi, and in some cases enjoying themselves with an Instagram Takeover of the Sorrisi account in order to talk directly with users. And there were also surprises, such as Cristina d’Avena who sang some of the legendary theme tunes to cartoons along with the entire editorial team. Sorrisi also put together a number of immediate reactions and declaration by the artists on their performance: as well as the traditional presentation of the winner Mahmood after the final on Saturday, the extraordinary improvisation made by Loredana Bertè after her performance at the Ariston, which to the editorial team by surprise with an interview that became a live Facebook event which drew some 200,000 views.

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.

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.

Icon Architects is the fourth in the Serie Oro of INTERNI that is an ideal continuation of the account of Italian design begun in 2014 with the commemorative volume marking the 60^th anniversary of the magazine. The year the focus shifts to Italian and international architects who, in addition to having created prestigious buildings and interiors, have been involved in some of our country’s most representative products. Their experience takes us to the origins of the phenomenon, the result of work by designers who wanted to design all-round, day-to-day spaces in their entirety: from architecture to objects of furniture.

We asked 100 Italian and international architects how, in the context of changes in the scale of their projects, their design approach changes. It is a topic of perennial interest that offers a picture of how they work within the Italian International Design system and contribute to the transformation of creative thinking into iconic products.

Following the preview at the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai, Icon Architects will be presented also in Miami. INTERNI, together with the Istituto Marangoni Miami and the Italian Consulate General, has organised a design talk ICON ARCHITECTS – 100 International stories and visions, a debate on the role of the designer and the architect in contemporary society, the current relationship between the two disciplines and the new perspectives to which the culture of design seems to have shifted.

Following opening remarks from Cristiano Musillo (Italian Consul General), Hakan Baykam (President and CEO of the Istituto Marangoni Miami) and Gilda Bojardi (editor of INTERNI), the participants in the discussion will be Nasir Kassamali (CEO Luminaire), Giulio Cappellini (Art director and Designer), Piero Lissoni (architect), Massimo Perotti (president and managing director of Cantieri Sanlorenzo), Mauro Porcini (Senior Vice President and Chief Design Officer of PepsiCo) and Allan Shulman (architect).

The event will take place on Tuesday 4 December at 10.30 am at the Miami School of the Istituto Marangoni (Building 3700 NE 2nd Avenue, FL 33137), in the heart of the Design District, one of the most dynamic areas of the city which, in recent decades, has become famous around the world as a key Art, Design and Fashion destination.

The volume, for which an additional print run of 10.000 copies (in Italian and English), has been planned, will be distributed in the main design showrooms in Miami, New York, London and Milan.

Icon Architects has been supported by over 200 of the best and most representative brands from the world of international design, contributing to the excellent results of the INTERNI system which, in December alone, has recorded an increase in revenues of over 3% compared with 2017.

With 208 pages, Icon Architects will be available from this week from newsstands as a supplement top the new issue of the magazine at €10 (magazine included).

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

On the occasion of the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai  (22 – 24 November 2018) the brand INTERNI will present the design talk ICON ARCHITECTS – 100 International Stories and Visions.

The event, organised by INTERNI China and INTERNI,  will propose the perspectives of a number of leading Italian and international architects who, as well as designing prestigious buildings around the world, have applied their approach to objects and created some of the most representative of Italian design products.

Icon Architects, the fourth volume in the Serie Oro of INTERNI, dedicated to 100 Italian and international architects, will be presented for the first time in Shanghai and will ideally extend the account of Italian design begun 2014 with the volume celebrating the magazine’s first 60 years, followed in 2016 with the collectors’ edition 500 Italian Design Icons Still in Production and in 2017 by Icon Makers.

The protagonists of the conversation Icon Architects – 100 International Stories and Visions, which will take place on Friday 23 November at 2.00 pm at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre (Dome Hall – Piazza Italiana), will beYang Dongjiang (editor-in-chief INTERNI China and professor at the Academy Art and Design of Tsinghua University) Gilda Bojardi (editor-in-chief of INTERNI), Carola Bestetti (Head of Marketing and Communications at Living Divani), Aldo Cibic (architect and founder of Cibic Workshop), Aric Chen (Curator-at-large of M+ – Museum for visual culture in Hong Kong) and Carlotta de Bevilacqua (Vice President and CEO of the Artemide Group).

 The international guests, representing the worlds of business, publishing and education, will take part in a debate on the role of designers and architects in contemporary society, on the current relationship between the two disciplines and on the new perspectives on the ways in which the culture of design seems to have shifted.

For full details please go towww.internimagazine.it

“C’è vita, in un libro. La tua” (There’s life in a book, yours) is the claim of a new book promotion campaign by Mondadori Store, the Mondadori Group’s chain of bookshops, and the fruit of an idea by the artist Mr. SaveTheWall with the creative contribution from the Action & Branding agency.

The initiative, which launches on 15 November, aims to enhance the reading experience through the voices and faces of readers: in other words real people who have taken part in an experimental artistic operation called Bookshot and who are the protagonists of the campaign by offering an unmediated account of their feelings and bring books to life in their own words.

“The result of this creative project is a form of communication that comes from and goes to the heart, because sharing a book is to share a part of your life,” declared Francesco Riganti, marketing director of Mondadori Retail. “Mondadori Store is making itself a spokesman and promoter of a message of social interest: an invitation to read, because we believe that more readers can lead to a more solid society that is focused on development and change.”

During two shooting sessions at the Mondadori Megastore in Via Marghera in Milan, Mr. SaveTheWall, aka Pierpaolo Perretta, the artist known for his situationist work that interprets issues and habits of contemporary society, met one hundred people. Each participant was asked to bring their favourite book with them and what emerged were  profound stories and feelings provoked by reading. Each of which was captured on video and fixed in a photographic portrait.

“An adage that I have made my own is ‘art is in the eye of the beholder’. And in Bookshot, as a work of art, I was able to note that the participants made the books the had read their own and created a  unique reading experience. The authenticity of the feelings of the participants is in itself something quite extraordinary especially if we consider that from a dialogue based on a single object – their favourite book – they were able to draw out a more profound and real synthesis of their life. This is why, for me, Bookshot is such an authentic, powerful and engaging project,” commented the artist Mr. SaveTheWall.

So readers are the exceptional witnesses to an initiative that will take place in the coming months on the web on a site dedicated to the project www.condividiunlibro.it, which will host he videos and photos produced by the artist. Users will be invited to take part by posting on Facebook or Instagram Stories their favourite book and a phrase the briefly explains why it is their favourite and using the hashtag #condividiunlibro. Alls of this content will be added to the platform, multiplying the sharing of experiences and will be rewarded by Mr. SaveTheWall who will choose the best shots.

“This is an ambitious and extremely valuable project that we are very proud of. A sort of perfect alchemy has been created among the people involved and this has enabled the idea to gather enthusiasm day by day and reach out to all of the touchpoints. The genesis itself of the creative idea was the result of collective intelligence working in harmony, a relationship model that can be taken as an example and that will increasingly find a place in the future.” concluded Alessandro Pedrazzini, CEO of Action & Branding.

The campaign will also benefit form articulated planning across different media and managed by MediaClub: press, with four subjects, on leading weekly and monthly titles and the Mondadori Store Christmas Gift Guide; the web and the social networks Facebook, Instagram and Youtube with di 30’’ and 60’’ videos; leading influencer networks; outdoor metropolitan digital posts, at metro, bus and train stations; and all of the shops on the Mondadori Store network and on Mondadoristore.it.

GialloZafferano, the Mondadori Group brand that is a point of reference for Italian food lovers with a monthly average of 12 million  unique users (source: Audiweb, July 2018), more than 6 million fans on Facebook and more than 600,000 readers of the magazine each month, is extending its mission to assist Italians in the kitchen with its new Skill for Amazon Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service.

In fact, from today, owners of Echo, the new Amazon device, can interact with Alexa to find inspiration for dishes to prepare, with access to all of the Giallo Zafferano recipes.

“We are particularly proud to be working with Amazon for the new Skill of GialloZafferano,” declared Andrea Santagata, deputy general manager of the Mondadori Group’s Magazines Italy division. “With Amazon Alexa people who love cooking will have access to an innovative voice service that provides convenient assistance in the search for recipes and ingredients, in an entirely natural and friendly way.”

All you have to do is say “Alexa, open GialloZafferano” to enter a world of delicious ideas and ask “Alexa, let’s start cooking” to be assisted in all phases, step by step in a way in which the user can also interrupt the preparation at any time and start again from where they left off, and without ever having to use their hands, which are normally employed in the kitchen. So you can continue to cut, chop, mix while Alexa describes the next step, available also on video for Echo Spot, the Amazon Echo device equipped with a screen.

GialloZafferano, on the strength of the success of Italy’s number one cooking site, from which has been created a monthly magazine that in a little over a year has reached an average circulation of over 120,000 (source Ads, March 2018), a series of books and a TV show on Canale 5, now in its second season, can now also count on an even more articulated multi-channel offer, able to support users at any time of the day.