And the 2018 NC Digital Award for Digital Innovation goes to… Connexia

8 novembre 2018 – A room packed with communication professionals – agencies, operators, managers – applauded Connexia as CEO Paolo D’Ammassa collected the 2018 Award for Digital Innovation from Salvatore Sagone, publisher and president of the event, at the 2018 NC Digital Awards winners gala yesterday evening.

This prestigious award comes after a run of successes that began quite a while ago. Connexia fearlessly embraced digital without a trace of superficiality, recognising its full potential and exploring every phenomenon in detail without fixating on fleeting trends.

Connexia understood that it needed to restructure the agency to make it easier for different departments to work together with a data-driven approach so they could provide an effective, integrated response to today’s complex demands.

“Nowadays there are too many skills and complexities to limit them to just one person’s head; we have to gather data scientists, strategists, creatives, tech architects, etc., around a table so all these diverse professional profiles can interact in a collaborate, constructive way,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia.

The agency set up an in-house production company, Connexia Media House, a few months ago. It’s a creative hub of content and ideas that develops communication projects with digital-first timing and methods. Connexia also launched its Corporate Division in June to offer an innovative digital approach to corporate communication as it firmly believes that the line between this and marketing communication is fading and all of the client’s stakeholders need to be effectively managed.

“I like to say that we are no longer a digital agency, a creative agency or an advertising agency.

We’re now a marketing and communications consultancy agency that integrates data, creativity and technology,” explained Paolo D’Ammassa. “We have 110 professionals, twenty-five of whom joined us over the past year, and turnover with solid double-digit growth. This corroborates the validity of our strategic approach and heralds other major new initiatives for 2019.

First, I’d like to thank everyone in the agency. Today’s award recognises our team effort, and hours of intense analysis and strategizing. We’ve invested, and continue to invest, so much in our people, and try to scout new talents and keep them motivated and engaged. We have created a talent program for the under 30s. We work closely with all of them. Four of our people are at the Web Summit in Lisbon at the moment, I’m flying to New York next week for AdAge Next, and we’re taking nine of one of our client’s European country managers to Silicon Valley in the second week of January so that they see exponential technologies and organisations for themselves.

We’re always totally focused on anything associated with innovation. We know that change is happening incredibly fast, but we also know that, despite the less than favourable macroeconomic context, they are plenty of opportunities out there for people who really want to be innovative and have the know-how to interpret what’s happening. Connexia is the right partner to bring about digital transformation and the market agrees.”

HoMedics and Connexia launch Gel Massage. Special Guest: Giorgio Mastrota

HoMedics, the leading American brand of home relaxation and wellness products, has appointed the data-driven creativity agency Connexia to manage the launch of the online communication campaign for the new HoMedics Gel Massage line, the innovative range of massagers for all massage needs featuring the exclusive Gel Massage technology that offers soft yet firm massages just like in a real professional spa.

Online until December 2018, the primary goal of the new HoMedics campaign is to consolidate brand awareness and deliver a fun, innovative message about the launch of the new Gel Massage line. At the creative core of the campaign is Connexia, which devised and developed the concept, and brought onboard Giorgio Mastrota, an actor and television presenter who is famous throughout Italy for his incredibly popular home shopping TV ads, as a special guest and product tester. The creative idea tells the story of various moments in the everyday life of the Mastrota family: for example, in one tongue-in-cheek video we see Giorgio appearing to do a home shopping ad in the comfort of his own home and hear his wife’s astounded reaction.

Connexia created the campaign in digital, video and display format with ad hoc content created exclusively for the brand’s website and social properties (Facebook and Instagram), which pokes fun at Giorgio’s comically large thumbs which have gained fame in Italy.

The strategy behind the campaign’s digital distribution was managed by FIND, a boutique agency in Milan that has been managing digital advertising campaigns and SEO for HoMedics since January 2018. The team handled all the developmental phases of the campaign, and successfully produced an approach that created synergy between all aspects involved to maximise results.

“The idea of having a testimonial came about because we needed to communicate the unique experience of enjoying a massage with the new Gel Line,” explained Dante Cesaro, the Marketing Director for HoMedics Italia. “The outstanding feature of the Gel Massage products is that they offer a soft yet firm massage that feels just like the real hands of a massage therapist. The creative concept provided by Connexia involved the participation of Giorgio Mastrota, who is a legend in Italian advertising, and a plan packed with social, PR and campaign display initiatives. It completely captured the spirit of the launch and successfully achieved all the initial goals with originality and tongue-in-cheek humour.”

“This latest communication project and initiative to boost brand awareness has definitely strengthened our partnership with HoMedics,” said Massimiliano Trisolino, Connexia’s Chief Strategy Officer. “Our creative ideas are designed to convey the indisputable quality of HoMedics products to the market by using genuine storytelling featuring a nod to the uber-popular world of home shopping ads and choosing someone as iconic as Giorgio Mastrota as the testimonial.”

Connexia produces the #Sipuòfare campaign per jobby, the app designed to revolutionise the job market

6 November 2018 – #Sipuòfare (It’s doable). This is the new claim from jobby, the innovative job-matching platform that has commissioned Connexia to manage its launch campaign. Started as a certified brokerage firm in 2016 based on an idea of Andrea Goggi, jobby now has over 30,000 subscribers and mainly operates in Milan, Turin, Bologna and Rome. Having more in common with dating models than the conventional job boards and recruiting models, jobby uses a free proprietary app to match supply and demand and helps to simplify the dynamics of an increasingly complex and complicated job market.

With a new working model based on monetising time, the jobby job-matching app uses an affinity algorithm that has been specially developed to put “workers and job suppliers” in contact with each other in a quick and easy but smart way. Once workers have created a profile, they can swipe through the open job offers and apply for a job with just one speedy tap. Private individuals or business with vacancies can produce an advert in a couple of minutes and specify whatever profile they require for that particular job.

“We’ve formed a creative synergy with Connexia that gave rise to an inspiring idea, starting with the campaign claim, a positive hashtag, and a quote that’s been tweaked to suit the possibilities offered by our app which enable any dream or wish came come true with a little help from some talented people.” said Andrea Goggi, the co-founder and CEO of jobby. “We feel that the #Sipuòfare message sums up all the core values of jobby and it’s just the starting point for a journey that holds no fear of challenges or change.”

Even the choice of creative, witty people whose simplicity makes them extraordinary perfectly mirrors our DNA as a start-up, DNA which is shaped by a daily life that is never dull and always full of surprises that need tackling, especially in a market like the job market which needs to be totally open to any opportunities and ideas if it plans on continuing to improve.”

The communications strategy developed by Connexia primarily targets private job suppliers and is designed for digital and outdoor media. Two channels, one goal: show just how easy the jobby platform makes it to find “the right person for a job that needs doing” in no time at all.

“We wanted the #Sipuòfare campaign to ensure jobby’s storytelling reflects the needs of targets with different skills, professional profiles and needs,” said Stefano Ardito, the Chief Growth Officer of Connexia. “When developing #Sipuòfare our creative and strategic team wanted it to be a memorable stand-out campaign so we worked on being relevant to the target audience, engaging them with a clear, appealing message, and using humour and the right tone of voice.”

“Wake Up Innovators” is back with the innovation culture event by Doxa and Connexia

25 october 2018 – Doxa, Italy’s leading market research and analysis firm, and Connexia, the Group’s data-driven creativity agency, team up again to host “WAKE UP INNOVATORS”, a series of monthly meetings about the innovation culture and science.

WannaCry, NotPetya, and the USA elections: the number of criminal cyberattacks has worryingly skyrocketed in recent years, jeopardising not only the security of private citizens, but also the fate of business and entire nations. To introduce us to these and other issues we have invited the cybersecurity expert Carola Frediani, who is also a journalist and writer that specialises in new technologies, the digital culture, privacy and hacking.

The discussion, entitled “Cybercrime and geopolitics. How the internet became a battlefield”, starts at 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 30^th October, on the sixth floor of the Doxa building, and will be moderated by Italo Marconi, Connexia’s Chief Innovation Officer.

“Wake Up Innovators” is back. Doxa and Connexia team up once again to debate innovation culture

Doxa, Italy’s leading market research and analysis firm, and Connexia, the Group’s data-driven creativity agency, host the third encounter with “WAKE UP INNOVATORS”, a series of monthly meetings about the innovation culture and science.

This month’s special guest is Luca Ravagnan, the CEO and co-founder of the biomedical start-up WISE, the only player on the international market to have developed a proprietary technology that can produce ultrafine, stretchable electrodes which can be implanted during minimally invasive procedures with negligible risk of dislocation, breakage or damage to the host tissues.

The discussion, entitled “WISE: How a mistake in the lab created a medtech start-up”, focuses on the development of the new neural technologies perfected by WISE and will be moderated by Italo Marconi, Connexia’s Chief Innovation Officer. It starts at 8.30 a.m. on Thursday, 20^th September, on the sixth floor of the Doxa building.

Based in Milan and Berlin, the medical devices firm is currently experimenting a new generation of electrodes for neuromodulation and neuromonitoring to help cure chronic pain and monitor the brain before and during surgery.

Connexia appoints Stefano Ardito as new Chief Growth Officer

5 September 2018 – With Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, geared up to tackle a final quarter packed with new projects and initiatives, today’s announcement that Stefano Ardito is joining the team as Chief Growth Officer comes as no real surprise.

As the CGO, Stefano is in charge of the agency’s growth and client management.

By joining the management team headed up by CEO Paolo D’Ammassa, Stefano will also work with Chief Strategy Officer Massimiliano Trisolino and Chief Operating Officer Letizia Giottoli. The Strategy, Client and Operations Directors have an integrated approach to managing their departments and work alongside the agency’s two Creative Directors and the Analytics Director.

Stefano’s arrival coincides with a period of immense momentum for the agency, which is incredibly satisfying as 2018 is Connexia’s best year yet. In terms of vertical growth, creative spirit, digital awareness, a data-led core business and focus on innovation, Connexia recognises that now is the time to consolidate the organisation and its leadership so that it can sustain the double-digit growth rate maintained by the agency over the past four years.

Well known in the communications world, Stefano Ardito has worked in conventional and digital agencies for many years. Before coming to Connexia he spent two years as the Managing Director at TwentyTwenty helping to build and consolidate the digital agency, and before that he was the Managing Director at Ambito5, which was fully integrated into Saatchi & Saatchi Italy.

“I’m really delighted that Stefano has joined us at a time when work is so busy and positive, and the agency has such a significant, unique and distinctive offering for the market,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “Connexia uses an integrated management model so when someone as experienced and professional as Stefano joins the management team, they can only make it better and stronger.

We’re determined to strengthen our position as a data-driven creativity agency and keep our growth rate in the same double figures that we’ve seen every year for the past four years by leveraging the value of incorporating data, strategic thinking, creativity and technology, and above all promoting the new Corporate Communication and Media House divisions.

We’ve structured the agency for success and we’re positive that with Stefano’s input we will continue to be even more successful.”

NAOS chooses data-driven digital transformation. With Connexia.

24 July 2018 – NAOS has guaranteed better care and protection for people’s skin worldwide for forty years. Using an alternative scientific approach based on understanding the skin and its natural mechanisms, NAOS promotes the principle of ecobiology to develop products that mimic the natural mechanisms of healthy skin.

Over the years NAOS has maintained and furthered its exceptional focus on skincare and expanded its scope to include all aspects of personal care, such as health, beauty and wellbeing. By working with a unique, extraordinary network of real “research and innovation pioneers”, the company has successfully created effective products that respect the skin and wellbeing of consumers.

NAOS has always chosen state-of-the-art research and development methods to enhance current and future projects, investing considerable resources and energy into staying on top of scientific advances and working with leading experts in international medicine. In keeping with its mission as an innovation-driven company, NAOS has chosen Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, as its exclusive partner for the digital transformation of the South and Western Europe area of the business.

One of the project’s main goals is to ensure that NAOS has effective processes and tools so it can leverage a precise targeted data strategy to listen to and engage its associates and consumers.

“NAOS is striving to make a fundamental change of approach to help us develop into a customer-centred organization,” said Christophe Billet, the NAOS Regional Managing Director. “Supported by a targeted data strategy, an innovative partner like Connexia and by a vision firmly focused on safeguarding the health and wellbeing of consumers, our company plans to implement a cross-channel strategy that integrates physical distribution with the tools provided by digital technologies so we fully complete an effective and informed digital transformation. Denis Balbo has joined our international team as Regional Head of Digital Transformation to assist us in this goal and to follow the definition and development of the strategy. ”

“The project is led by our Chief Innovation Officer Italo Marconi and focuses on the communication and business process aspects of data strategy, envisioning and organisational culture transformation. ” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “Our actions shape the future. Anyone wishing to innovate, invests in renewal, improvement and forging ahead towards a new and different way of looking at the world. ”

“NAOS is a company with extremely modern sensitivities and core values: it has a constant desire to question and challenge the status quo so it can build a future that never loses sight of its ultimate aim: humanity. Connexia has a data-driven approach and flair for experimenting collaborative and innovative working methods which makes us the perfect partner to help NAOS make this change and help them to disrupt current paradigms. ”

A team comprising the Chief Innovation Officer and a data scientist, creative technologist, user experience designer and customer experience researcher will accompany the international management at NAOS as they embark on this path of digital adaptation, which also includes a Digital Safari in Silicon Valley to take a closer look at the issues associated with all the disruptions that are already impacting this particular sector.

Introducing the Connexia Media House

04 July 2018 — Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, is proud to present the Connexia Media House. Excellence, fast response times, and streamlined production processes: a team of creatives working on every step of producing content from creation to treatment and production. Our goal? To bring the skills needed for content and video production in house so we can instantly and effectively meet our clients’ demands for video content.

Connexia has launched a new production hub with a major focus on real-time video content so we can independently meet the daily demands for creating original, high-quality video content. Whether it’s a photo shoot, branded content or social video production, the Connexia Media House has a new production model that accelerates the multiple stages of the process, making it less complicated and more effective.

Featuring a team of highly specialised young talented professionals with international experience, including filmmakers, photographers, stylists, producer, writers and storytellers, Connexia’s Media House is already fully functional and working closely with the agency’s two creative and strategic divisions, while meeting the needs of all Connexia’s other specialist areas, namely digital, social media, PR, events, and innovation.

With 110 professionals and a forecasted € 13.5 million turnover for 2018, representing double-figure year-on-year growth, Connexia has successfully capitalised on and enhanced the value of its creative expertise and data-driven approach by organically bringing them together in a consistent manner to serve our video content offering. Connexia has strong ties with the Doxa Group – Italy’s only independent market research firm with an international network covering seventy countries – and being part of this group gives the agency a guaranteed unique competitive advantage, namely that combining the production of native video content with data analysis and interpretation can be used to formulate all our communications and business strategies.

“As an agency we receive increasingly more demands every day for more and more high-quality video content. Based on this rise in demand, we decided it was time we had our own studio in the Connexia building kitted out with all the latest equipment and staffed with the right people to ensure we always respond swiftly and effectively to the needs of the market,” Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia, “The Connexia Media House is a strategic choice which we floated to the market a few months back and proves our determination to focus the expressive vitality of our young professionals on real-time video content.

We’re placing immense emphasis on cost efficiency, formats, all the latest in communication touchpoints and integrating technological innovations as these are all key factors in the Connexia Media House. It goes without saying that we will continue to work with the top production companies in the video production market for our more demanding or highly complex projects .”

Connexia launches the Corporate Communication division

18 June 2018 — Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, has launched the Corporate Communication division. Our goal is to use the finest consumer language to benefit the corporate world and leverage unique, cross-sectorial skills. The team will be led by Zornitza Kratchmarova, a professional journalist who has covered current affairs, economics and finance for Italy’s top publishing houses for over fifteen years.

The Doxa Group is a byword for market research and Italy’s only independent market research firm with an international network covering seventy countries. Being part of this group gives Connexia a guaranteed unique competitive advantage. Data is of paramount importance as it provides the concrete figures with which to formulate all our communication and business strategies – these give us the power to advertise or promote the company with a strategy that works equally well online and offline depending on the situation and requirements.

This is the approach championed by the new Connexia Corporate division, a business branch that incorporates a vast range of diverse skills and expertise. With over 100 professionals and a € 11 million turnover in 2017, representing double-figure year-on-year growth, Connexia has been working on corporate issues for a while now with some of its core clients, such as Roland Berger, Verti, Conad, Save The Duck, Singularity University, Campari, and Mylan.

Some of the division’s key services include reputation analysis and monitoring, economic and financial communication, digital PR and social media marketing, CSR, crisis and issue management, and content and storytelling. The division will serve all of Connexia’s business units and work closely with all the other teams to ensure a comprehensive, stand-out offering.

Zornitza has been the Corporate Communication Manager for Doxa since autumn 2016 and will retain that role as she joins Connexia as the Corporate Communication Director to consolidate and develop the unit. Zornitza will have a team of three corporate accounts plus the support of the creative and strategic divisions and Connexia’s other specialist areas, namely digital, social media, events, and innovation.

“We want to innovate and transfer the most advanced storytelling dynamics from the consumer sector to the corporate world,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “We’re used to constantly conversing with and engaging people, and now we want to get them excited about corporate issues as well. We’ll also be working hard on the media mix as this is still very traditional in the corporate world and no longer in step with the stakeholders’ real percentage of media consumption.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “In the right key one can say anything. In the wrong key, nothing: the only delicate part is the establishment of the key.” And, in an era when changes are ever-more drastic and sudden, getting “that” key just right has become so much trickier. Even in the corporate world.”

Connexia teams up with Special K for Italy’s version of “Powering You”: stories about women and everyday challenges

30 May 2018 – Kellogg, the world’s leading cereal company and second largest producer of cookies, crackers and savoury snacks, has entrusted Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, with its popular Special K brand and the management of the PR and digital communication strategy for the launch of “Powering You”, the international campaign that celebrates the power of women at different moments in their day. The Milanese agency will implement the PR and digital PR initiatives with the aim of launching “Powering You” in Italy in a way that is relevant to Italian women.

Women have been eating Special K for over sixty years, and the brand has changed the form and content of its products particularly in recent years to help women to always reach their full potential and accompany them from dawn to dusk.

The Special K “Powering You” campaign is part of the idea to move away from the concept of dieting that it always encapsulated in the past. Today’s new positioning places a focus on the nutritional benefits of the product and the brand’s ability to help women in the different challenges that they tackle every day and help them be the best version of themselves.

Tasked with making the “Powering You” campaign relevant in Italy, Connexia devised and developed a creative concept which would successfully appeal to the Italian target audience: “Donne in Azione di Special K” (Special K Active Women). The agency identified and coordinated all the PR and digital PR initiatives and selected and engaged four outstanding personalities for the campaign: Federica Fontana, Vanessa Ferrari, Cristina Marino and Giorgia Surina. The aim was to convey every aspect of the “Donne in Azione” concept and show how women represent and are consistently an “active force” in all the countless challenges they are expected to tackle and manage every day.

When it was time for the “Donne in Azione” campaign to officially debut in print and with the food, lifestyle and wellness bloggers, Connexia had created an event during which Special K showcased the new campaign’s key messages with the testimonials and asked Doxa, Italy’s leading independent market research and analysis firm, to present a preview of the results from a survey into the everyday challenges faced by Italian women.

Connexia’s creative team had also produced photographs and videos to maximise the content and Special K’s digital activities. The team had organised ad-hoc photo and film shoots and produced original scripts that accurately described the activities in progress. Special K is pleased with the results and the excellent working relationship that has been built with Connexia, which is why the agency will continue follow all initiatives associated with the “Powering You” campaign and new products from the Special K brand throughout 2018.

“We are very happy with our partnership with Connexia as it has successfully created a complex campaign like “Powering You” with messages that are relevant to Italian women and initiatives that fully convey the values and nutritional benefits of our brand,” said Donato Cangelli, Cereals Marketing Director, Kellogg Southern Europe.

“Working with Kellogg’s Special K is an extraordinary opportunity for Connexia to devise and develop a truly relevant creative concept and use innovative storytelling to effectively support the strategy for the launch of the international “Powering You” campaign in Italy,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “We are very pleased with the trust-based relationship that we are building with the brand and delighted to keep working with Special K over the coming months to maintain the consistency and continuity of the current campaign, while consolidating our role as the agency of choice for the food industry for all communications initiatives.”

#DeborahLovesKeithHaring: Deborah Milano presents the “Keith Haring Design Collection”. Strategy, digital creative concept and pop party. By Connexia.

11 May 2018 – Deborah Milano, the Deborah Group’s fashion make-up brand which has epitomised “Made in Italy” excellence worldwide since 1962, has once again proved that it’s an energetic, vibrant brand by tasking Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven agency which already manages all aspects of social and digital communications for the Deborah Milano, Debby, Rouge Baiser Paris and Dermolab brands, with developing and devising an original creative concept to celebrate the Keith Haring Design Collection, the new must-have Special Collection created with the Deborah Milano brand’s partnership with the Keith Haring Foundation.

By transforming creativity, beauty, passion and a love of colour into essential core values in 1962, Deborah Milano immediately became a leading name in the beauty industry as a setter of international trends and promoting beauty in all aspects of daily life.

Celebrated partnerships with nationally and internationally acclaimed famous artists over the past eighteen years have cemented the brand’s role as leader and offered customers the chance to enjoy real “design objects”, beauty must-haves with a savvy mix of high-performing cosmetics and iconic designs and lines.

Inspired by the colourful, revolutionary, innovative, and disruptive street culture in 1980s New York, the Keith Haring Design Collection celebrates the brand’s partnership with the Keith Haring Foundation, which protects Keith Haring’s artistic and philanthropic ideals and legacy. A value shared by the artist and brand is “democratization”: just as Keith Haring believed art should be accessible and democratic and within reach of everyone, Deborah Milano believes make-up should be affordable and within reach of all women. Accessibility and creativity are the other two essential values providing a two-way link between the brand and the creativity of the graffiti-art artist-cum-icon.

Featuring best-selling Deborah Milano products specially “dressed” for the occasion in the famous colourful, stylised figures, the Keith Haring Design Collection celebrates a unique person and an eclectic artist that the world will never forget, just like the collection that pays tribute to him.

Inspired by the “roaring Eighties” and the versatility of Haring’s art, Connexia has created the #DeborahLovesKeithHaring concept by devising a three-phase project to support the launch of the new collection: a social and digital campaign, media plan, digital PR initiatives and a hot-ticket event to mark the special bond between Deborah Milano and the artistic inspiration of Keith Haring.

The stars of the #DeborahLovesKeithHaring party were the brand’s ultimate “classics”, real works of art for which Connexia’s Events Team chose the unique setting of T35 by Nhow, a venue as vibrant as modern as Haring’s artwork in Milan’s hippest neighbourhood, Tortona, a favourite hangout with artists, designers and artisans.

Guests were welcomed by Deborah Group CEO Antonio Vanoli as they celebrated Keith Haring’s sixtieth birthday together with a special collection. An uber-special DJ set played exclusively for the evening with a mesmerising blast from the past featuring underground music and vibes to recreate the mood of the unforgettable Eighties, the period when Keith Haring kicked off his career by starting to draw on the New York underground.

“Deborah Milano is a brand that often enables us to experiment with the agency’s more imaginative and creative side,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “Being actively involved in creating and developing a creative concept for the communication strategy and launch of a new collection is in itself an absorbing experience. But it becomes extraordinarily motivational when the inspiration comes from the personality and artworks of an artist of the calibre of Keith Haring, who chose the streets and underground as his “art galleries”, and the creative drive is fuelled by a period in time that was as unforgettable, irreverent, innovative and transgressive as the Eighties. #DeborahLovesKeithHaring aims to be, recount and celebrate all this.”

Milanese preview of “Oliviero Toscani. Ladro di Felicità²” for the 70th anniversary of Costa Cruises. By Connexia.

10 May 2018 – Costa Cruises is celebrating its 70^th anniversary with a special project and an outstanding partner: Oliviero Toscani. Toscani “stole” over 100 photographs while on board the Costa Pacifica ship to showcase the happiness experienced by the guests on Costa ships through the lens of his camera and immortalise these unique, one-off moments in time captured during a Caribbean cruise.

The “Oliviero Toscani. Ladro di Felicità²” (Happiness²Thief) exhibition opens on 6^th July at Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, and Costa Cruises tasked the Events Team at Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, with organising the Milanese preview of these photographs.

Oliviero Toscani and six international Instagrammers – Mattia Bonavida, The Rerum Natura, Marko Morciano and Laura Masi from Italy, Oliver Vegas from Spain, and Loic Lagarde from France – will be at Area Pergolesi in Milan this evening for a round table discussion that promises to be a lively debate about the evocative power of images, the evolution of photography, and its personal interpretation, the contribution by major photography brands compared with the new digital expressive models and the innovative new ways of using images. By exploring the new frontiers of photography and their relationship to traditions and social networks, the guests will be literally “projected” on board Costa Cruises ships with 360° video projection.

Nicolas Ballario from Oliviero Toscani’s Factory will be the evening’s moderator. A curator and journalist, Nicolas Ballario has worked with many Italian newspapers and magazines and the Venice Biennale, and is also the writer and presenter of contemporary arts programmes.

The real star of the show is photography, which recounts tales of journeys and “happiness squared”. The story of Costa Cruises began when the Anna C. passenger ship made her maiden voyage on 31^st March 1948. To mark the occasion Oliviero Toscani boarded the Costa Pacifica also on 31^st March to embark on a project that uses images to celebrate the seventy years of emotions experienced on Costa ships. A hundred photographs were selected from the many taken during the cruise to be featured in the exhibition in Genoa and become an integral part of the history of Costa Cruises.

The venue was selected specifically for its digital facilities and given a customised Costa Cruises look: an enormous funnel, which is characteristic feature on every Costa Cruises ship, welcomed the public as they arrived. In addition to being a fully video-projected event, the interiors had also been creatively staged to take guests on a real virtual cruise: every element from the seating to the stage had been imaginatively designed by Connexia to recreate a typically maritime setting.

“Many things have changed since Costa began back in 1948, but we continue to work to achieve our primary goal: to make our guests happy,” said Luca Casaura, Costa Cruises’ Senior Vice President of Global & Strategic Marketing. “This is why we decided to dedicate an exhibition to happiness to celebrate our 70^th anniversary, and work with a master of photography like Oliviero Toscani who has so brilliantly captured the real essence of a Costa cruise. This is a truly special project and it was important to us to give it to Genoa, our city. It was also important to hold an exclusive preview in Milan, so we could create a unique opportunity for people to discuss and share photographic techniques and how they are evolving.”

Connexia has created an event for real photography buffs: 150 guests were invited to take part in the round table discussion, including members of the Canon Academy and students from Milan’s top photography, social media marketing and digital marketing schools, such as the IIF (Italian Institute of Photography), IED and IULM.

“We are delighted that Connexia was selected as the exclusive partner to produce and coordinate such a special moment for Costa Cruises, the only cruise ship company in the world flying the Italian flag,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “We love telling unique stories with creativity, originality, passion, and an eye for attention to detail; it’s what we do and it’s what we do well.”

Connexia presents (and experiments!) Bring Your Mum to Work Day: a new mum-friendly format for a fully immersive taste of agency life

Milan, 9 May 2018 – Connexia, the Doxa Group’s data-driven creativity agency, launched Bring Your Mum to Work Day today, an original format created for Mother’s Day by the Milanese agency’s creative team to get their employees’ mums engaged and involved. Connexia’s mums are invited to come and see and experience what their children do with a fully immersive morning in the wonderfully wacky and hectic life of an agency.

The trailer for the Bring Your Mum to Work Day multichannel project starting airing on Connexia’s social channels last week, and offers a tongue-in-cheek glimpse of the initiative’s main goal: to show the employees’ mums what a typical day in their children’s working lives is like, particularly when their children work in such a fascinating world which often remains a mystery to “outsiders”. During their visit to the agency, the mums will discover how and why their children are accomplished professionals who excel at communication.

To achieve the goal of − finally – bringing different generations together and getting them to come at new technologies from different angles, Connexia will launch the Bring Your Mum to Work Day format on Friday, 11^th May, by inviting their associates’ mums to spend a morning in their offices and get a taste of what agency life is really like! This means welcoming our mums, showing them where their children spend their days – the meeting rooms, the vitally essential coffee machines, and “creative” desks buried under Post-it notes – and engage them in the experience that represents the real “heart” of the creative process in any self-respecting agency: brainstorming.

With expert guidance from the agency’s account managers, Connexia’s mums will be divided into work groups and involved in a full-on brainstorming session with real clients, real brands and a real brief!

And because we never like life to be boring and predictable, there’s more!

Connexia has thought of others besides “its own mums” – it wants to reach out to all mums and to do this the agency has prepared a special kit for all the companies interested in trying the Bring Your Mum to Work Day experience. The kit can be downloaded from www.mammeinufficio.com, and contains all the “basic tips” you need to ensure the event is a success. It offers a handy guide to using the format in any type of company and not just the service sector or digital communications specialists.

“Let’s be honest: the generation gap in today’s society is incredibly tangible, and it is “sadly true” – as well as often funny, trying and a source of endless misunderstandings – that our mums often have absolutely no idea what their children actually do at work!

Bring Your Mum to Work Day is an unusual and potentially very endearing format, especially for anyone who works in an agency, and the idea of creating and trialling this format for the first time in Italy highlights two values that we think are fundamental: the value of experience for us at Connexia, namely the possibility of having an experience and being able to recount it, which then unfurls when our mums get involved, and our ironic and creative approach to developing our in-house communication initiatives,” said Paolo D’Ammassa, the CEO of Connexia. “In addition to being welcomed to our Via Panizza offices and shown a cross section of agency life, our special guests can also put their skills to the test as “communicative mums” and actively take part in real working groups producing ideas for real Connexia clients. The Bring Your Mum to Work Day format will definitely intrigue and appeal to other Italian business and encourage them to embrace our idea of sharing with the older generation and bridging the generational divide.”