Business

The Mondadori Group brands are among the protagonists of the “Milano Licensing Day”, an event that brings together the leading operators in the licensing and brand extension market, taking place on 13 September at the Hotel Nhow in Via Tortona.

Among the opportunities offered by the magazines of the Mondadori Group, the Italian leader in the sector, is a licensing programme that above all involves the titles in the kids and cooking segments. Products under license and formats in franchising in line with the philosophy, identity and brand assets, that drive the encounter between demand and offer that for years has been the essential ingredient of the Milano Licensing Day.

An innovative offer of content and services that circulate around the Mondadori Group magazines; not just a basic printed product, but rather an authentic integrated communication system that makes the most of the editorial expertise, by investing every day on the web and social networks, promoting events around the country and involving communities of readers with a wide range of initiatives.

Heading up the new proposals will once again be the Focus Junior “system”. During the year, the brand, which is an established point of reference in the world of children and young readers, has reached a number of licensing agreements with prestigious brands, leading to a range of quality products: from personalised Easter eggs with Kinder Gran Sorpresa to the flowpack miniatures produced by Dynit, and from the large-format exercise books of BM Arti Grafiche to the cards and diaries of Giochi Preziosi.

Also featuring at the Milano Licensing Day will be forthcoming books, the latest project developed by Focus Junior: from 30 October young readers from the age of 6 will have the opportunity of discovering a large number of science-related curiosities in “Un mondo di record” and to discover the incredible diversity of our planet thanks to “Un mondo di mappe”.

A sort of “fun science” that is spreading across Italy, thanks to franchised educational and play spaces carrying the Focus Junior label.  After a made-to-measure bedroom produced by Cgfdesign, just a few days ago, the first Focus Junior Play Lab was opened in Lecco; a space designed to satisfy the natural curiosity of children and early teens with science laboratories, and drawing, cooking and digital journalism workshops and which, in addition to the space and equipment also offers a teaching plan conceived by the editorial team, the training of operators, a communication plan and a range of activities in the local area.

The strength of the Mondadori Brands is confirmed also in the kitchen, thanks to initiatives organised by Sale&Pepe, which with its franchised cooking school every day offers a new and exciting way to experience restaurants and their protagonists being guided by passion and skill. Set up in Milan in 2015, the Sale&Pepe cooking school has a broad selection of courses for adults and children, events for individuals and companies, showcooking demonstrations and themed-evenings. It is a format that can be reproduced across the entire country two ways: from a traditional space equipped with a chefs kitchen and work benches to itinerant “cooking stations” in public spaces, with the brand that offers in every case the opportunity to transform a love for food into a remunerative job.

Monday 17 September will see the launch of “OFF”, a new series conceived and presented by Edoardo Sylos Labini and promoted by Mondadori Store, which will bring to its events area of the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo in Milan some of the most famous and popular personalities in Italy.

Giusy Versace, Roberta Bruzzone, Vittorio Sgarbi, Raul Cremona, Vladimir Luxuria and Carlo Cracco are just some of the protagonists involved in 8 events on the programme that starts next week: one event per month until April 2019 will animate a late afternoon in Milan with fascinating revelations about the personal and professional lives of famous faces from the world of the arts, sport and entertainment.

They will be welcomed by Edoardo Sylos Labini who, accompanied by the voice and guitar of singer-songwriter Daniele Stefani, will give a new form to his OFF interviews: the eclectic Roman artist will adopt the role of presenter in a “salon” made less formal and attractive by unseen images of the guests and continuous interaction with the audience, who will be able to interact live with their favourite personalities.

“For an artist, an interview is often like an audition,” said Edoardo Sylos Labini. “If there is no feeling with the interviewer this can create tension. And if you don’t feel relaxed sometimes you can end up saying things you didn’t mean or intend to say. By switching roles, I try to make the interviewee feel at home with a friend, in an intimate setting. This is how the OFF interviews were launched in my web magazine ilgiornaleOFF.it, revealing some of the most secret aspects of the lives and careers of the interviewees and it’s a great joy that we can no bring the format to the Mondadori Stores”.

“The initiative picks up and develops the format of Manzoni Cultura, which last year brought us together with Sylos Labini,” declared Francesco Riganti, marketing director of Mondadori Retail, “and foresees a series of new and exciting encounters with personalities for a range of areas, from sport to the arts, the media world and cooking. The backdrop for the events will be the elegant location of our Piazza Duomo megastore, which has now been a point of reference for culture in Milan for more than 10 years: an irreplaceable hub and meeting place for the entire city that brings people together, where the guests of ‘OFF’ will be able to talk about themselves in a spontaneous and unusual way, sharing feelings, anecdotes and interesting stories about their private and public lives.

The series will start on Monday 17 September at 7 pm with Giusy Versace, the paralympian athlete, winner of silver and bronze medals at the European Championships in Grosseto in 2016, and who in recent years has demonstrated an extraordinary capacity as a TV presenter and theatre actor.

The OFF programme at the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo will then continue on 17 October, again at 7 pm, with the philosopher and essayist Diego Fusaro, and on 7 November with the criminologist and psychologist Roberta Bruzzone. The last date for  2018, will be 3 December when the protagonist will be the art critic Vittorio Sgarbi. Then, on 11 January 2019, it will be the turn of journalist and TV presenter, Serena Bortone.

From news to magic, on 5 February the amazing Raul Cremona, will tell some incredible stories from the world of conjuring. On 8 March. meanwhile, Sylos Labini will be face-to-face with writer Nino Spirlì and Vladimir Luxuria, activist, dramatist and TV presenter, to talk about sexual identity and civil rights. The series will come to a close of 16 April 2019 with award-winning chef Carlo Cracco, supported by a female chef from the Elior Group who will reveal some secrets fro special occasions.

The Media Partner of the initiative is the web magazine IlGiornaleOff.it, the detailed online version of the Saturday supplement of Il Giornale, edited by Edoardo Sylos Labini. The official Sponsors of the series include: Artisti Annuario Internazionale di Arte Contemporanea, Elior, Felicia and Lineapelle.

The complete schedule of OFF series is available at the webstie: https://eventi.mondadoristore.it/it/

Spy is celebrating its first anniversary with a range of new features, aiming to satisfy its readers even more with an increasingly useful, rich and complete product.

Starting with the issue on newsstands this week, the Mondadori Group magazine dedicated to the secrets of the star system is expanding its content with new features and columns by some of the most popular faces on television, together with a redesign of the title’s layout.

“One year from its newsstand launch of, Spy is giving itself a new look and new format: in fact, in addition to gossip, readers will discover news articles and lifestyle features, as well as a number of new columns by well-know TV personalities,” declared Massimo Borgnis, editor of Spy, adding, “Plus a surprise for cooking enthusiasts: recipes curated by GialloZafferano, Italy’s most celebrated cooking web site.”

From this week there will be a multiplication of the regular appointments in the pages of Spy, with tips on household financial management from Titti and Flavia from Detto Fatto, advice on insurance and pensions form the Tg5 expert Bruno Benelli and medical details from Dr. Pierluigi Spada from the RiaTre programme Tutta Salute. Space will also be given to taking care of plants, with suggestions from Luca and Daniela Sardella, the presenters of Parola di pollice verde on Rete 4 and a new cooking section with recipes from GialloZafferano, the most popular cooking web site in Italy.

Every week the heart of Spy will remain the stories, scoops and behind the scenes coverage of celebrities and personalities form the world of TV radio and show business that excite and enthuse Italians, reported in the unmistakeable and well-informed style that characterises the magazine. The look of the title has also been upgraded to improve readability and clarity. And finally, there will of course also be sections dedicated to television programmes, fashion and beauty.

The launch of the new Spy is being supported by an articulated communication plan across a range of media: from a TV commercial (on air on the Mediaset channels, Discovery, Fox) and radio spot (on R101, Radio Italia, R105, RMC and Radio Subasio), print media, the Group’s web sites, as well as sales points and large-scale retail outlets.
The connecting thread of the advertising campaign will be the claim “Peccato non leggerlo!” (It would be a sin not to read it!), that has distinguished the magazine since its launch.

Spy is on newsstands at the special price of €0.50.

The Mondadori Group is Italy’s leading publisher on the web: this is the assessment of the latest Comscore data for May, which show that Mondadori properties are out in front with a total audience of 28.7 million unique users per month, a rise of 22% compared with the same period of last year. At the same time, market reach is up to almost 76% of Italy’s digital population.

The Mondadori Group boasts Italy’s richest and most diversified digital offer.
With over 30 authoritative and successful brands on the web, the company is also leader in the high-value vertical sectors, such as women, food, wellness, fashion and education, thanks to the 16 million unique users of Donna Moderna, the more than 12 million of GialloZafferano, the 5.8 million of Starbene, and over 3 million of Grazia as well as the 9.3 million users of Studenti.it.

This result has been achieved thanks to the development path followed by the Group’s digital magazine area since the acquisition of Banzai Media until today.
All of the main sites in the portfolio have been involved in an ongoing renewal and updating process, including Donna Moderna, which has a new look nad feel to give users an even more immediate and intuitive experience; Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni with its new digital Guida Tv making it easier to navigate through a continually evolving television panorama; Grazia, through its Grazia Factory project, which presents and gives voice to the most interesting emerging influencers in fashion, beauty and lifestyle; and the redesign of Nostrofiglio and Panoramauto, with enhanced content and a more structured approach to the channels.

To all this should be added the recent additions of Oroscopo.it, Italy’s leading astrology site, and Design D’Autore, the international social system. leader in the design sector, with which the Group has consolidated its positioning in the women and design sectors, expanding also the audience on social networks, where the presence of Mondadori brands is similarly strong, with over 20.2 million fans on Facebook over 46 pages, up by 56% compared with the same month of the previous year.

An all time record Maturità (the Italian high school exam) season for Studenti.it, the Mondadori Groiup brand that is a point of reference for Italian students. The site, which this year is celebrating its 20^th anniversary, chalked up its best ever traffic figures during the recently concluded period of written exams, confirming its leadership in the education segment.

In the 3-day period from the eve of the exams until the second written paper, Studenti.it recorded double-digit growth, during the live marathon from 19 to 21 June, reaching 2.3 million unique users; there was also a particularly significant boom in access from mobile devices, which in the same days accounted for 73% of the site’s total traffic (source: Google Analytics).

Also of significance was  triple-digit growth on Facebook. The “Maturità 2018” group, coordinated by the Studenti.it team, saw an authentic flood of registrations, reaching a total of 42,000 subscribers (+280% compared with 2017): exam candidates who up until the “night before the exams” continued to interact with each other looking for help and, in turn, offering their support to their peers. Overall, thanks to constant activity on the fan page, in the week of the written exams, Studenti.it content reached 2.4 million users, a figure that rises to 3.8 million when the data for the last month is taken into account. Also in this case an extraordinary performance compared with 2017, with increases of more than 250% (source: Facebook Insights).

So, an increasingly social and digital maturità, made possible also thanks to the quality of video content: in addition to live feeds with experts, psychologists and tutors in preparation for the exams, the big new feature this year was the involvement of webstars and youtubers such as Favij, Frank Matano, Sofia Viscardi and Salvatore Aranzulla, who talked about their experiences with the maturità through live specials on social media and popular video clips. In fact, during the last month, including the exam days, the Studenti.it platforms (Facebook, YouTube and the web site) recorded 4 million video views.

The Chi Summer Tour, an event created by Chi, Italy’s most widely read people magazine edited by Alfonso Signorini, returns this summer to 4 very trendy and chic locations. Following the enormous success of previous editions, this year the tour will have a range of new features to entertain the many guests and the public.

The tour kicks off on Saturday 30 June on the beach of Mondello in Palermo, before proceeding on  8 July to Cortina d’Ampezzo, on 15 July to Forte del Marmi, ending up on 21 Juli in Rimini.

This year the Chi Summer Tour will travel round Italy with a personalised truck that will convert into a stage from which the editor Alfonso Signorini and his guests will animate the squares of the locations involved.  This year’s four stages will provide an opportunity to get a closer look at the world of the Mondadori Group magazine, to meet the editor and the celebrities participating in the event.

There is much anticipation for the talk show, conducted by the editor Alfonso Signorini, with some of the best known faces from the world of entertainment who will talk live about themselves to the audience, providing also some gossip, curiosities as well as what’s new and trending in the summer of 2018. From Valeria Marini to Giuseppe Sottile, and also Cecilia Capriotti Giovanni Ciacci, Francesca Valtorta, Romina Mondello, Iago Garcia and Antonio Spagnolo. At the same time, the Chi truck will also host moments dedicated to beauty and a show-cooking by Alice Balossi, pastry chef and cake maker, blogger and TV presenter.

The appointment at all 4 locations will be at around 7 pm in the heart of each place visited by the Chi Summer Tour (with the exception of Cortina, that will start at around 5 pm).

With this format, the advertising sales company Mediamond offers companies the possibility of communication projects and events that allow them to present their stories in original and valuable contexts.

All updates concerning the Chi Summer Tour will be available on the magazine’s social media profiles: Instagram chimagazineit and Facebook www.facebook.com/chimagazine and by following  the hashtag #chisummertour.

The 20^th June sees the start of the final high school diploma exams in Italy, commonly known as the “maturità”, and once again this year Studenti.it – the Mondadori Group brand leader in Education sector market with 4 million unique users per  month (source: Audiweb, January 2018) – is working with students to help them pass this important moment.

Studenti.it boasts 20 years of experience having been launched in 1998 as a pass-notes database to help students to exchange study materials: the site has grown alongside the Millennials and Generation Z, young people now aged between 10 and 20, who have never known a world without the internet and that are the core audience for the brand. Since the beginning, the site has seen its offer expand enormously, with the addition of content edited by researchers and university professors, a constant flow of news and information about the world of schools, dissertation summaries, exam tools and simulations and a range of other supporting materials, making a total of some 50,000 documents in the archive.

In a now consolidated tradition, also this year, in the days of the written exams (20, 21 and 25 June) Studenti.it will run non-stop live coverage of the maturità from 7am to 8pm: with real-time updates and comments from experts and tutors in different subjects who will provide assessments of the outlines proposed by the Miur, as well as developing simulations to be published at the end of each exam. On the field, the Studenti.it team will interview students outside the schools, before and after the exams, to gather immediate reactions and comments to be added to the flow of news on the site.

Listening to the views and needs of those directly affected is part of the constant efforts made by Studenti.it to get as close as possible to the maturità: for example, online surveys using questionnaires on the site and on social media have in recent months brought together the opinions of more than 52,000 students facing the maturità this year on various issues related to the exam (study techniques, the use of technology, progress assessments, managing nerves, “outlines”), surveys that have been picked up and reproduced by local and national newspapers, as well as on the radio and the web.

An important new feature this year was the involvement of popular webstars, such as Frank Matano, Favij, Sofia Viscardi and Salvatore Aranzulla, who took part in live interviews and video spots on Facebook with a reach that so far has totalled 1 million people: the participants shared news and anecdotes about their experiences of the maturità, along with useful advice and tips for getting through the exam and also dealing with what happens after the exam, when adult life really begins.

Also on Facebook, where the Studenti.it page has over 466,000 fans and continues to grow, a dedicated “Maturità 2018” group has recorded an authentic boom in subscriptions: 40,000 students (three times more than last year, the widest group about the exam in Italy). Through the group, moderated by the Studenti.it team, students can come into contact with each other in the search for tips about the exam, to let off steam in moments of difficulty but also to offer their own creative qualities and share know-how: what will come out in the Italian exam? How to prepare the perfect cover for your dissertation? What software to use? How to set out a conceptual map? How does the credits and bonus system work? Does anyone know the external examiners on my commission? These are just some of the topics that ring round schools across the country in a normal day of students preparing to face the maturità in 2018.

The seasonal peak of traffic is an opportunity for many companies and brands to communicate with a young audience in a qualitative context, also by integrating the site’s social platforms into advertising plans.

Giallozafferano, the point of reference for Italians in the kitchen, with 6.6 million unique users every month (source: Audiweb), over 6 million fans on Facebook and more than 600,000 readers for its printed magazine, from today will “speak” to its community also on  “Google Home, the voice-activated smart speaker recently launched in Italy by Google.

The Mondadori Group brand will consequently be available through Google Assistant across all compatible devices: Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, and Google Home and Google Mini smart speakers.

With Google Home it is possible to interact with the digital cooking assistant of Giallozafferano, that will establish a pleasant and friendly natural conversation with the user: all you have to do is call the assistant with a simple vocal command “OK Google, let me talk to Giallozafferano” to get the help you need in the kitchen. The secret lies in the innovative step-by-step function, in which a voice will accompany the user through each step of the preparation of the dish – using the vocal commands “back”, “repeat” or “forward” – making it possible even for inexperienced cooks to follow the recipe and  produce a perfect result without mistakes.

In fact, the  step-by-step function makes it possible to complete each phase of the preparation, interrupting when necessary, and starting again from where you left off. All by using the simple vocal “OK Google, ask Giallozafferano to start cooking again”; a particularly useful feature for dishes that require a long preparation.

With Giallozafferano’s new Action on Google,  you can choose a recipe, from a selection of over 4,500 available, with “OK Google, ask Giallozafferano for the recipe for tiramisù”, or run through the list of ingredients with the command “OK Google, tell me the ingredients”.

The new service offers a range of functions also to users accessing Giallozafferano from a smartphone or tablet, with even easier and more immediate usability thanks to the support of high-quality photos that make each stage even more intuitive and simple to complete.

This new project continues the brand strategy of Giallozafferano which, on the strength of the success of the web site from which a magazine was created that in just over a year has achieved an average monthly sale of 120,000 copies (source: ADS, March 2018), a series of books and a TV programme on Canale 5, can now count on an even more articulated multi-channel offer.

A special evening, at Pitti Uomo in Forence, to celebrate Iconic Club: a small and selected group of iconic product that have become part of the history of style, certified by ICON, the upscale male lifestyle title of the Mondadori Group, edited by Michele Lupi. And, on 12 Jun, the Iconic Club Party, at Le Pagliere in Florence, will bring together the brands that have created historic icons of style; objects which, over the years, have built around them authentic communities of admirers who are proud to wear, use and share them with other enthusiasts, conscious of belonging to a limited and exclusive group.

This is the philosophy of Iconic Club, which made its debut this year in the pages of Icon with a special editorial feature dedicated precisely to the stories of such icons: from the enduring legend that is the Vespa Piaggio or the Land Rover Defender in the automotive sector, to items of clothing that have become imprinted in the collective memory of universal style, such as the Fay 4 Ganci or Levi’s 501 jeans, the Baracuta G9 Harrington Jacket to the Valstar Valstarino, or the mythical Persol 714 sunglasses and the Montblanc Meisterstück fountain pen. Behind every one of these symbols there is much more than a simple product, but an account of an original story that has developed over time to create a status symbol in terms of style.

“The inspiration – says editor Michele Lupi – came to us from the many clubs of motorcycle and car enthusiasts. With the editorial team we decided to apply the same concept – made up of communities of aficionados who come together at ad hoc events around the country to exchange information across specially created social media platforms etc, also for the world related to style and fashion.”

For the first time, the Iconic Club Party on 12 June will bring together the Iconic Club brands from the pages of the magazine in an evening event in the centre of Florence in an exhibition that covers the history of each individual product. A show perfectly integrated with the environment of Le Pagliere with big posters celebrating the icons of style that are the protagonists of the event, with historic photographs of the partner brands, taken form the archives.

This special event will be animated by a live-set by Nicky Siano, a pioneer of dance music and the legendary first resident DJ at Studio 54, the Manhattan disco which, at the end of the 1970s, was frequented by a pantheon of the international jet-set, including Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol, John Travolta, Michael Jackson, Elton John and many more.

The evening’s beverage partner will be Belvedere Vodka, the world’s leading luxury vodka, which has created especially for the occasion two Signature Cocktails, the Belvedere Iconic Club and the Belvedere Pink Icon, the official cocktails for the event along with Belvedere Ruby Tonic.

To mark the Pitti Immagine Uomo 94, the June issue of Icon, like that of last January, will enjoy a special distribution on the platforms of the high-speed trains running between Milan and Florence, in the lounge areas of 4 and 5 star hotels in Florence, and to opinion leaders and international buyers at Pitti.

Companies have responded enthusiastically to the lively and exciting proposal of Icon and given the advertising company Mediamond an extraordinary result for the June issue, which has recorded a 60% in sales compared with last year.

A record number of visitors for the INTERNI HOUSE IN MOTION exhibition at the 2018 FuoriSalone. From 16 to 28 April, in the courtyards of the Università degli Studi di Milano, at the Orto Botanico di Brera and the Audi City Lab in Corso Venezia 11 (the former Seminario Arcivescovile), where, for the second year in a row, the magazine extended the reach of its urban animation, there was a more than 60% increase in visitors compared with the 2017 edition, reaching close to 400,000 at the three locations.

Marking the 20^th year of the exhibition, 32 projects were presented, of which 18 installations and 14 design islands, with the contribution of 2 co-producers (Audi and Eni gas e luce), 32 partner companies, 4 institutions (Regione Umbria, Regione Puglia, Apex Brasil, Orticola di Lombardia), and 40 designers (including architectural studios, architects, designer, artists, as well as a specialist school). The installations, along with numerous conferences and talk shows, two concerts and two theatre shows, a workshop and design prize, created a varied mosaic of styles and visions and opportunities for exchange that attracted hundreds of thousands of people.

At the Università degli Studi di Milano attracted some 220,000 visitors, the Orto Botanico di Brera 80,000 and 80,000 also visited the Audi City Lab in Corso Venezia 11, a total of 380,000 people. Among these, over 750 were Italian and foreign journalists who gave to INTERNI HOUSE IN MOTION an exceptional level of media coverage, in national newspapers, and on radio and television, as well as specialist and mass market titles, and guaranteeing a continuous presence on leading social media channels and the web.

As a result, the INTERNI exhibition confirms it position as the  representative event of the FuoriSalone thanks to the high design and cultural level of the installations, the brands involved – all of which recognised at the Italian and international level – and the inclusion of smaller players that likewise demonstrated an remarkable capacity to present content of the highest level.

This extraordinary response, both in terms of audience and media visibility, is a clear demonstration of the absolute leadership of the magazine edited by Gilda Bojardi in the professional living segment and design system communication.

Credits ph: Saverio Lombardi Vallauri