We all know that smartphones and tablets have taken market by storm. there is no doubt that it is just a dawn of digital era. Smartphone sales are expected to have crossed a billion units in 2013, a growth of 40% over a year ago. And, tablet shipments are estimated to grow over 50% to 221.3 million units*. These facts highlight the intensity at which we will be overwhelmed by these gadgets.
The Last Man Standing
It is not a surprise that every other magazine, tabloid or newspaper is shutting down or going digital ( ala Life magazine where Walter Mitty worked :p ). Not any more the print copy sales remain the bread earner, are they? But what is it that people continue to buy a premium range of notebooks (not digital but a black oilcloth binding hardbound notebook). I am talking about is Moleskine, a premium range of notebooks being sold across 100 countries with 30 exclusive outlets spread across the world.In 2012 Moleskine had revenues of € 78.4 million a growth of 16% over 2011 while profits grew at twice the rate to € 18.2 million. These numbers may not seem significant enough but for a notebook company they are strong. Consider these in the atmosphere of digital onslaught, they are spectacular!!
What keeps Moleskine hardbound?
Brand Equity
Moleskine is the apple of stationery world. World's best brands stand more for than the product they denote like Apple, Coca-cola, Mc Donald's etc. Whenever you think of an artists notebook or a premium notbook, you think of Moleskine People swear by Moleskine. It has its strong loyal following. Did I say Loyalty?? Yes, in today's world, Customer Loyalty is one thing that Moleskine takes pride in. In its 18 years of existence, Moleskine has got fiercely loyal bunch of followers who avoid sketching in any other notebook forget about taking notes.
Inheritance of History
Bruce Chatwin famous british writer who moans the death of his favourtie notebook in his book the Songlines as 'Paris Notebook', eponymously called by writer for its place of inception. Other famous users include Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse to name a few. It was discovered that the guild of such notebook makers has gone distinct in Paris. Then, Arggigo Berni started delivering authentic 'Paris Notebooks' under brand name Modo & Modo which was eventually renamed as Moleskine after being bought by private equity major player Syntegra Capital in 2006.
Though investors have taken issue with Moleskine's "Faux History", Customers do not seem to care at all about it ->
CAGR 2009 -12
Revenue : 24%
Net Profits : 34%
Differentiation through Digital Media
This
October, Moleskine joined hands with popular iPad design app 'Paper' by
FiftyThree, which allows to create your own designs on Paper and then have 15
pages of your sketches on it printed on a customized Moleskine notebook for
$40.Moleskine has a plan to get you to buy its books instead of just sticking
to apps. Well, that could be the differentiator between itself and its
competitors
No ATL (Above the line) but Thought Leadership & Word of Mouth
Marketing as we knew is over. ATL activities no longer hold significance instead are part of the game because of Game Theory. Instead to create mind share, firms are adopting to Thought Leadership and Word of Mouth. Arggigo Berni, CEO of Molenski did not use any ATL activities in its market penetration and market expansion activites stuck of ' Word of Mouth' due to its wonderful history and cult following. This was further consolidated by Thought Leadership demonstrated at events like Jaipur Literary Festival 2011 where Moleskine released a special edition pocket notebook designed by graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee
*http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24461613
The Last Man Standing
It is not a surprise that every other magazine, tabloid or newspaper is shutting down or going digital ( ala Life magazine where Walter Mitty worked :p ). Not any more the print copy sales remain the bread earner, are they? But what is it that people continue to buy a premium range of notebooks (not digital but a black oilcloth binding hardbound notebook). I am talking about is Moleskine, a premium range of notebooks being sold across 100 countries with 30 exclusive outlets spread across the world.In 2012 Moleskine had revenues of € 78.4 million a growth of 16% over 2011 while profits grew at twice the rate to € 18.2 million. These numbers may not seem significant enough but for a notebook company they are strong. Consider these in the atmosphere of digital onslaught, they are spectacular!!
What keeps Moleskine hardbound?
Brand Equity
Moleskine is the apple of stationery world. World's best brands stand more for than the product they denote like Apple, Coca-cola, Mc Donald's etc. Whenever you think of an artists notebook or a premium notbook, you think of Moleskine People swear by Moleskine. It has its strong loyal following. Did I say Loyalty?? Yes, in today's world, Customer Loyalty is one thing that Moleskine takes pride in. In its 18 years of existence, Moleskine has got fiercely loyal bunch of followers who avoid sketching in any other notebook forget about taking notes.
Inheritance of History
Bruce Chatwin famous british writer who moans the death of his favourtie notebook in his book the Songlines as 'Paris Notebook', eponymously called by writer for its place of inception. Other famous users include Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse to name a few. It was discovered that the guild of such notebook makers has gone distinct in Paris. Then, Arggigo Berni started delivering authentic 'Paris Notebooks' under brand name Modo & Modo which was eventually renamed as Moleskine after being bought by private equity major player Syntegra Capital in 2006.
Though investors have taken issue with Moleskine's "Faux History", Customers do not seem to care at all about it ->
CAGR 2009 -12
Revenue : 24%
Net Profits : 34%
Differentiation through Digital Media
For a strong digital
presence, what most brands do is having smartphone and tablet apps. Moleskine
has done much more that. It has used apps to its own advantage instead of
seeing them as threat. It launched a collection of notebooks with the popular
notetaking and archiving app 'Evernote' in 2012 where you can capture the
content in the squared and ruled Evernote notebooks on the app's camera, which
makes the text searchable and shareable.
No ATL (Above the line) but Thought Leadership & Word of Mouth
Marketing as we knew is over. ATL activities no longer hold significance instead are part of the game because of Game Theory. Instead to create mind share, firms are adopting to Thought Leadership and Word of Mouth. Arggigo Berni, CEO of Molenski did not use any ATL activities in its market penetration and market expansion activites stuck of ' Word of Mouth' due to its wonderful history and cult following. This was further consolidated by Thought Leadership demonstrated at events like Jaipur Literary Festival 2011 where Moleskine released a special edition pocket notebook designed by graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee
*http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24461613
