Get to know few other things Moleskine make apart from notebooks

Did you know the Italian notebook maker also does cafes, bags and travel accessories?

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Time Out Bangkok in partnership with Moleskine

Monday February 11 2019

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Moleskine is globally-known for one thing: notebook of different kinds. Jotters, planners, sketchbooks—they have them all. But the truth is, the Italian-born stationery powerhouse has much more to offer—everything from bags to coffee shops to online magazine. Here, Mavis Leung, the brand’s regional marketing and communications manager, sits down with us to talk about Moleskine beyond notebooks.

When we talk about Moleskine, people are more familiar with the notebooks. But we’ve recently learned Moleskine does a lot more than that. What are they?
Yes, we’re really born with the legendary notebook. What we are moving towards is to develop beyond the lifestyle brand. We are moving towards to build up the brand with the multi-category collection that generates inspiration, too. Of course, at the very beginning, we were actually providing notebooks, which has had a very strong heritage. They are actually used by big artists to express their ideas and creativity. With our brand’s five pillars—memory, imagination, cultural, travel, and personal identity—we support users to expand knowledge, creativity, and also self-individual expression. From the notebook, we develop into other paper tools like journals, detachable notebooks, journals for special occasions like wedding, which actually helps you how to plan your wedding with different categories provided, like budget, inspiration and guest list. And then, we have jumped into travel accessories like booklight and pouches.

Later on, we launched bags made of a very lightweight fabric since we are targeting urban nomads who’re always on the move. In 2016, we did a collaboration with a very famous Italian brand Brics to create luggage and trolleys. We’ve also worked with key partners such as Adobe, Evernote and Neolab to create a smart writing set, a system made of special notebooks, smart pen and Moleskine Notes application that allows your handwriting to be instantly synchronized on your digital devices. We also have a Timepage and Actions, which are other apps to help you organize your schedule so, basically, we actually embrace the digital world.
Our first cafe was opened in 2016 in a duplex store in Milan. It’s one of It is an expansion of the brand’s concept. It is a place for inspiration and idea exchange. It is inspired by a "cafe littéraire," a kind of meeting place for you to do meetings, exchange ideas and generate conversation while you’re having coffee. The cafe is offering our audience through 360-degree experience through food, environment, and cultural programs. We have artists doing live painting and creating some illustration in our Milan cafe. Sometimes, they have a seminar or panel discussion about literature topics which focuses on creativity.

You have so many products, how do you stay true to your core value and style?
As I have mentioned about all the collections, we call it "Moleskine ecosystems" because each of them is carefully designed. Basically, all these objects are like platforms for people to generate creativity and to express themselves. That’s why I’ve mentioned one of the brand pillar is personal identity. We develop things consistently to move towards our vision and to convey the same message.

Does the digital age have an effect on your brand?
We actually embrace the digital age, that’s why we try to develop a paper in an innovative way. Each of them cannot replace each other because each of them has its functionality. For the analog world, every artist in the 19th century started to express their creativity with their blank piece of paper which can reveal your personal touch or your personal identity, your style, or even your character. Nowadays, people are very interested in learning calligraphy. All these kinds of things, you cannot do in the digital world. However, the digital world is also very important because we cannot deny that it really helps people to make it much more convenient. That’s why our smart writing set is to help people express themselves and to generate ideas much more convenient.
Even before our website has built up, many people shared their art creations. They made something on the notebook, they customized it on their own ways and they shared it on their personal blog. Basically, digital and analog worlds complement each other. They have their own unique functionalities.

How do you see the growth among Thai and Asian fans?
Nowadays, Instagram is getting much more popular and we can see a hashtag that there are many Thai people and Thai artists who spontaneously upload their art creations on the notebook on Instagram. For us, we are actually growing on artsier level. We’ve started to work more with local artists, because we want to make the brand relevant to local markets. We currently have pop-up stores at Gaysorn Village and ICON Siam. We are distributing in different shopping malls in Bangkok. We also have selling points through retailers in Phuket, Pattaya, and Chiang Mai. We are trying to enhance our brand equity as well as reinforce our art DNA and core values.

Is there anything that most people don’t know about the brand that you like to share with us?
I have found when people write “Moleskine”, many people usually have missed the “e”. Another problem, I think we are still being perceived as one of the stationary brands, although they know that we have much more categories and variety of objects. That’s why in these few years, we are working very precisely and dedicated to build our brands as a MINDSTYLE icon and telling people that we are already a global, multi-platform, multi-categories brand.
Our mission is to help people develop and share their ideas, creativity, knowledge as well as exchange culture. When you use our product, it’s not just about our product, you can feel our brand values and you can feel that you are really proud of carrying Moleskine because you show that you have strong creativity and personality. We are trying to help people express themselves.