Roberto Lobetti—Chief Marketing Officer, Moleskine
Roberto talks to TheNextGag about the latest brand expansion from Moleskine and how opening cafés fit into the overall strategy.
Roberto Lobetti is the Chief Marketing Officer of Moleskine in Italy.
In 2016, Moleskine launched its first Moleskine Café at Corso Garibaldi 65, in the heart of the Design District of Brera in Milan.
This new retail format drives the brand into a new dimension. The Moleskine Café are a contemporary reinterpretation of the historic concept of the “café littéraire”.
Designing the space and enabling their brand experience, Moleskine created a place of inspiration where ideas and stories could be shared. Moleskine Café provides its guests with an innovative retail experience, creating an atmosphere where they can socialize and enjoy food, creativity, and shopping in a single space designed to reflect the distinctive, clean aesthetics of Moleskine.
Moleskine Café offers a careful selection of blends, filtered, and brewed coffee. And it mixes the elements of cafés, art galleries, stores, libraries and event venues, to boost creativity and provide a space for deep thinking and relaxation.
The Café design reflects Moleskine’s style: simple, essential lines, and a colour range based on neutral shades, which creates a relaxing environment that encourages exploration and dialogue, just like the ivory-coloured pages of their notebooks. Large full-height windows illuminate the interior and create continuity with the terrace and city streets.
This new retail format, designed and developed in partnership with Interbrand, represents a natural evolution for a brand dedicated to creating content and building cultural experiences.
THENEXTGAG: WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL BRIEF FOR THE MOLESKINE CAFES ?
ROBERTO LOBETTI: Inspired by the European tradition of cafés and the consumption of coffee as a socializing factor, the underlying concept of the Moleskine Café is to provide a platform for idea generation and sharing. We aim to create a space where creative professionals can enjoy quality coffee, feel encourage to socialise through specially designed areas, and become a source of inspiration by offering meaningful and insightful contents.
TNG: HOW DO THE MOLESKINE CAFES FIT INTO MOLESKINE’S INNOVATION STRATEGY ?
RL: We’re always looking to offer experiences coherent with our brand identity, sometimes stretching far beyond paper, and designing travel accessories, apps, digital accessories, branded content and now the Moleskine Café. This entry into the Café world is a natural development for us as it allows us to really share our brand values through a cultural offering and an atmosphere that encourages the exchange of ideas and moments of inspiration.
TNG: WHAT WAS THE MAIN TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THE MOLESKINE CAFES ?
RL: Creative professionals, lovers of the Moleskine brand, travelers, and in general anyone who would like to find a place for relaxation and an offering of quality coffee.
TNG: HOW DOES MOLESKINE MEASURE SUCCESS FOR THE MOLESKINE CAFES ?
RL: We measure success by business KPIs and of course we care about the feedback we receive from our community, their reviews and their experiences. The Café is not to be considered a mere retail touchpoint, but a place where we can directly engage with our audience and create local networks. It’s an invaluable point of dialogue for us.
TNG: CAN MOLESKINE SHARE THE BUSINESS RESULTS OF THE MOLESKINE CAFES ?
RL: We are unable to share this information at present time as two out of three of our Cafés have opened within the last 3 months.
The Milan Café has been very positively received, becoming in little over a year a venue for talks and cultural events linked to the city. This is what has given us the confidence to open also in creative hubs like Beijing and Hamburg.
TNG: WHY DID MOLESKINE SELECT THESE COUNTRIES FIRST TO OPEN THE MOLESKINE CAFES ?
RL: We opened our first owned Moleskine Café in Milan because our headquarters are based in this city and it was the best way to observe, learn and fine tune the project. Milan is also considered a design and fashion capital and is a breeding ground for many creative professionals.
After consolidating the Café in Milan, we decided to take the experience also to Beijing, because of the large and significant community we have in China.
TNG: DOES MOLESKINE PLAN TO OPEN NEW LOCATIONS OF THE MOLESKINE CAFES ?
RL: The Moleskine Café in Hamburg has opened its doors on March 14th within the Thalia bookstore. Just last Sunday we organized an opening event there featuring a live painting performance with artist and calligrapher Rylsee. We feel we’re at the beginning of a journey but we can’t share all our plans all at once.
