Augustus January Newsletter 2025

This tribute captures all things media, thought leadership, content and business development. Keep track of Augustus Media brands; Lovin Dubai, Lovin Saudi, Smashi and ODEUM. Let’s take a deep dive into content & campaign highlights, along with our current commercial updates.

Message From The CEO

Augustus Media: 10 Years of Growth, 100 Million Stories

Augustus Media approaching its 10th anniversary has evolved into a dynamic media group owning Lovin, Smashi and other innovative brands. Lovin captures local stories across 22 cities in the Middle East, while Smashi delivers business and sports content.

Looking ahead to 2025, Augustus Media aims to:

• Expand Lovin to new cities.

• Grow Smashi's business and sports coverage.

• Increase audience engagement beyond 17 million.

• Embrace new media formats like newsletters.

• Prioritize vertical video across 350+ social media channels.

• Enhance digital platform features for better user experiences.

• Leverage AI for personalized content.

Augustus Media is committed to connecting audiences through impactful stories and embracing innovation for continued growth and success.

Richard Fitzgerald
CEO & Founder

📱 All Things Content

The content team closed out the year with exciting milestones and major wins across the Lovin network!
In Dubai, Lovin Life with Tam Khan made its debut and our Lovin Dubai WhatsApp channel crossed over 200k followers. The Lovin Dubai Show brought the glitz, welcoming stars like Love is Blind's Nour & Asma and Harry the Heal Chef and wrapped up the year with a festive gifting segment, The 12 Days of Christmas.

Overall, Lovin Dubai reached a staggering 112 million people in December alone. In Abu Dhabi, the team celebrated the season with sponsored Christmas competitions and continued to deliver hyper-local coverage, including stories on the F1, racking up thousands of views on YouTube with Lovin Abu Dhabi reaching 10 million people this month.

In Saudi Arabia, we launched Smashi Arabic Verticals on Business, Entertainment, and Sports, which garnered over 2M+ views across social channels in under a month. We successfully partnered with MDL Beast, Sound Storm and Pepsi for comprehensive event coverage in Riyadh. We also kicked off a daily live broadcast on Lovin Saudi’s Instagram, with the first show pulling in more than 1000 live viewers and consistently strong engagement since.

In Cairo, we hit major numbers, with Lovin Cairo reaching 23.7 million views on Instagram in December. The newly launched WhatsApp channel has already attracted nearly 2k followers in less than a month. Our collaborations with top brands like Vodafone, Hydeout, O West, Ski Egypt, and the Pyramids Marathon were huge successes, with takeovers and campaigns delivering fantastic results.

Saima Iqbal
Senior Content Director

👀 Into Business Performance

As 2024 came to a close, December marked our highest revenue month in Augustus Media's history, solidifying a record-breaking year. This milestone was significant as we exceeded our monthly revenue target substantially, achieving an impressive 130% of our goal. We also met our ambitious growth goal, closing the year with 26% business growth across all markets.

Regional Strength: Our brand presence is on an upward trajectory across the region. Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, and Doha all demonstrated significant growth, showcasing their potential as key markets for our continued expansion.

Diversifying Revenue Streams:

• Smashi Subscriptions: Strategic partnerships with professional sports leagues have driven an increase in Smashi subscriptions.

• Social Formats: Smashi Business’ social formats gained further traction, contributing to both brand growth and revenue.

Overall, 2024 has been a very strong year for the business, and December's performance was the perfect way to cap it off. The commercial unit is energized and ready to build on this momentum as we set our sights on achieving even greater expansion goals in 2025.

Mayowa Tola-Voss
Senior Commercial Director