Mondadori Media's innovative MarTech hub, created around the digital company AdKaora following the acquisition of Hej! in 2021 and, subsequently, the Spanish media agency Adgage, completed a few months ago, aims to offer the market a wide range of next-generation marketing and advertising services.
In fact, the offerings range from proximity marketing solutions to data-driven performance conversational marketing, from mobile first video advertising solutions to a creative studio capable of offering clients high-impact and highly effective adv formats.
The synergies between AdKaora, Hej! and Adgage, which to date make up Mondadori Media's MarTech Pole, began at the end of 2022 with the aim of ensuring, also from a technological point of view, a better development of new integrated solutions, enhancing the different professional skills present and maximizing commercial effectiveness and go-to-market. A successful path, confirmed by the results achieved in 2023, which show total revenues of more than 32 million euros, up by almost 30 percent compared to the previous year, flanked by a strong and continuous strengthening of the team, which now has 80 professionals between Milan, Rome and Madrid.
International development is one of the most relevant drivers of the strategy. The acquisition of the Spanish company Adgage opened up important new international outlets in 2023, starting in Spain itself and, in recent months, in Latin America. The deal allowed the expansion of AdKaora and Hej! also into foreign markets and the extension of the AdKaora Value Network, thanks to the entry of important new publishing groups worldwide, and also in 2024 entry into other European markets and beyond is planned.
The second lever of development in the coming years is the search for realities to be integrated in order to offer innovative and complementary solutions to the range of services already offered. Some interesting extraordinary operations are already being studied in this area.
The third area of development focuses on the strong ability of the in-house marketing, tech and innovation teams to continue developing new products by knowing how to seize in advance the opportunities that technological evolutions make available. In this direction, AdKaora has recently launched new adv solutions on the market, such as Impact Video, a high-impact full-screen mobile format that fits within an advanced total video strategy that covers different channels and focuses on the most interesting KPI of the moment: Attention.
The effectiveness of AdKaora's video formats has been proven by the excellent results found in "The Attention Game" research conducted by GroupM and by KPIs provided by third-party certifiers such as Lumen and DoubleVerify. Proximity marketing has also taken a further leap toward even more effective coverage of the entire consumer funnel thanks to the partnership with Savi - a marketing technology company specializing in coupon-based shopper activation services - with which it aims to strengthen consideration on the product and purchase incentive through mobile couponing.
Consideration becomes a crucial phase to preside over in order to arrive at more concrete results. Thus, 2024 will see the consolidation of the full funnel proposition of AdKaora and Hej! that combines the quality of products with branding focus of the former, with the strength of performance of the latter.
Indeed, the strength of Hej! lies in leveraging Artificial Intelligence at different levels of product and analytics. Thanks to its proprietary platform, which is increasingly advanced in terms of analysis automation, Hej! allows it to offer its clients very in-depth qualitative analyses that aim to optimize the results of the entire supply chain. Through the data collected in real time, it is possible to achieve optimal performance and act on the next marketing steps, such as, for example, the processing of a qualitative lead.
And it is precisely on Generative Artificial Intelligence that the Mondadori Group intends to invest significantly in the coming years, also to support the growth of the MarTech Cluster. In this area, an important Open Innovation project will be launched soon, which will also see Mondadori Media at the center of the AI-related revolution in publishing and marketing.
In order to achieve its ambitious goals, the MarTech Cluster has defined a new organizational structure. Reporting directly to Andrea Santagata, CEO of Mondadori Media, Davide Tran, former CEO of AdKaora, was appointed Director of the MarTech Pole,with the aim of implementing the new development strategy and maximizing synergies.
Reporting directly to Davide Tran, Stefano Argiolas was confirmed as Managing Director of Hej! and appointed Head of Artificial Intelligence for the Mondadori Group; Paolo De Santis, Co-Managing Director of Hej!, was appointed Head of Development of New Acquisitions of the MarTech Pole.
To strengthen international development, Luca Nigro, former CEO of Adgage, has been appointed Head of Development of the MarTech Pole in LATAM countries; Francesco Binetti, Head of Operations at AdKaora, has been appointed Head of International Development of Publisher Solutions for the MarTech Pole.
The central commercial division, on the other hand, is entrusted to Paolo Ingrosso, appointed Polo MarTech Commercial Director, and Luigi D'Alterio, Commercial Manager for Hej! and Polo MarTech's direct customers, while Walter Ferrari assumes the role of Marketing Manager.