Moleskine Sold to a French Company

[molesk...@gmail.com]

Google Translation from Le Figaro:

" Funds of investment of the general Company repurchases the small
notebooks at an Italian company.

IT IS transfers of companies which exhale a perfume of nostalgia.
Moleskine, celebrates manufacturer of small notebooks of voyage,
changes hand. For 60 million euros, funds private of the general
Company comes to repurchase this so French mark and which however was
not it any more. In 1998, the Milanese company Modo & Modo had started
again it, for the greatest pleasure of the amateurs.

With this transfer with a financial investor of French extraction,
small SME returns a little to the "fold" with the same desire for
building its future by also exploiting its past..."

More at Moleskinerie:
http://www.moleskinerie.com/2006/08/the_moleskine_n.html

[Daly de Gagne]

Perchance this is good news. And highly suggestive that the high
sounding words from the Italian company in the spring were perhaps aimed
as attracting investors or buyers.

Maybe all of us who have written to the Italian company need to resend
our concerns to the French owner so that there is not misunderstanding
about our commitment to Moleskine's quality, and our willingness to buy
the product -- but also so that it is clear that a word of mouth
campaign could bring down a poor quality product just as surely as it
boosted Moleskine's resurgence in the first place.

Daly

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[Armand]

Author Ben McConnell has also written an article about Moleskinerie at
his Church of the Customer Blog.

LINK:
http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2006/08/moleskine_how_t.html

[Daly de Gagne]

I have just perused that site, and read the following in their Moleskine article:

By deftly focusing on exceptional manufacturing quality and a few obvious but killer features (a black elastic band wraps around the outside to hold the French-vanilla-colored pages of the notebook closed tightly), the Italian entrepreneurs used Moleskine’s history as its distinct selling advantage. That helped it become a cult product with mainstream sales numbers: 4.5 million Moleskines were sold in 2005 .

Unfortunately the exceptional manufacturing quality got lost along the way.

I have sent Customer Evangelists a copy of the post I sent earlier today to various groups warning of the poor quality of today's Moleskines.

It is well and great to be citizen marketers, but with reports of Moleskines falling apart, somehow it feels a little sleazy.

Daly


Armand wrote:

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[Armand]

"t is well and great to be citizen marketers, but with reports of
Moleskines falling apart, somehow it feels a little sleazy. "

Its only sleazy if we don't voice our opinions about it.

Armand

[Daly de Gagne]

Armand, I like that perspective -- at least that way we are not being
sleazy.

What hurts is that this company (the old one) benefited so much from
what you and others, such as myself, have done, and in doing what we do
we put our own credibility on the line. It is our integrity that is at
stake. I guess what I meant to say is that I feel a little sleazy when,
even though the fault is not mine, I find I am promoting something where
quality is allowed to slip and the voices of loyal customers are
ignored. Perhaps there is disillusionment because I allowed myself to be
swept along in the Moleskine mystique.

Daly

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[Armand]

I always treated my notebooks (Moleskine, Rhodia, Mead, generics, etc)
as tools and when they fail to perform as well I discard them or shift
to a different brand. Marketing/mythology is the company's concept and
whether we subscribe to it or not is our prerogative.

As I have said, having voiced our opinions on a perceived product
defect/deficiency should be enough. In the end, each of us has the
freedom to choose which brand to use.

I do not feel used or have any complicity in some sleazy scheme. As
they say in Texas, "manure happens", in this case the company may
have neglected aspects of its production or design. Thanks to you and
the rest, we voiced our opinions. Now they know. It's up to the new
owners to make the necessary changes if any.

Personally, it's nothing I'll get all worked up, risk a hear attack
or lose sleep on. There's more to life than notebooks.

[Daly de Gagne]

Hey bro, now you're sounding like a philosopher, and I like what you're saying.

Daly

[Armand]

Thanks! I like to play one on the Internets sometimes.:)