Magazine B #80 • Mont Blanc

Published in English out of Seoul, South Korea, each issue of Magazine B (a.k.a. Brand Document Magazine) introduces one well-balanced brand. B shares the untold stories behind the scenes, including the culture of the managers, employees, customers, and communities that create, support, and sustain a brand. Readers gain insights into how great brands get, and stay, great. Interviews with employees, consultants, competitors, customers, and analysts give a 360-degree view of all aspects of a brand. Magazine B has published 91 issues since 2011, with each issue sustaining relevance, covering the core values and practices of timeless brands.

Every issue examines how a brand balances four elements to realize their goals of service to their owners, employees, customers, and communities: Beauty, practicality, price, and philosophy.  B’s unique insights and in-depth analysis of how brands started, how they're managed, maintained, and presented to the world, offers readers a new way of looking through a brand's particular perspective.

This Issue:
Started in 1906 as a fountain pen manufacturer, Montblanc has produced quality writing instruments using its great sense of balance and technology. As the era of fountain pens diminished with the rise of ballpoint pens, Montblanc transformed itself into a luxury brand with its premium fountain pens and later expanded to fine leather goods and watches. The brand’s unique ability to impart the elegant imagery of its flagship product to other product lines is still proving successful into the 2010s, despite changes in luxury goods distribution structures and different tastes of the ascending millennial consumer group.