Moleskine Knock-offs - not about form factors

I'm always amazed by the number of Moleskine knock-offs I see during my trips to find stationery products.  For example in my last trip to PaperWorld 2007 in Frankfurt, almost over 20 of them were seen in the show. I also found from other shows dozens of other imitations. Almost all of them have better price point than Moleskine.

As a Moleskine fan, the thing I dislike most is not that they all have similar form factors coz they are really just what a typical notebook should have - bookmark, elastic enclosure, inner pocket, sewn pages, acid free etc, anybody can make one.  They are not even original to Modo & Modo I guess.  It is the poor quality and/or unoriginal packaging/marketing that bug me.

I was totally surprised back then in January 07 when I found Quo Vadis also jumped into this game by launching a new series called Habana.  This is a mystery to me, do they need to do that?  They produce tons of diaries/planners each year and it is no surprise to create a typical size diary with elastic enclosure but it looks like they have address books and notebooks with various sizes and the placement of graphics on the sleeves are just like Moleskine.  I like the color coordination a lot but not sure if my feeling is so rooted to Moleskine to the extend I found the cover material (probably PU) weird to touch.  The samples I saw were prototypes so perhaps the binding/gluing is already improved for commercial release.  Perhaps this move is a strategy to sell a popular notebook form factor to its existing strong customer base to gain certain market share?  What an interesting subject to study if somebody can tell me more, I'm just seeing the surface of the move.

Yesterday I went to Macau to see the gift show held in Venetian Hotel/Resort/Casino.  The shopping mall there is filled with top brand shops.  In a book/stationery store I went in to check if they sell Moleskine, I thought I found it but upon closer look the notebooks were yet another knock-off many may have already heard of.  It is called Monologue.
It is produced by a company in Singapore called Grandluxe.  I just couldn't resist the tempt to get one at HK$46 and see what kind of quality it has.
The skin is made of "Italian PU"... Italian PU?  Front and back covers are slightly thicker than M.  Only ruled version is available in two sizes same as Moleskine.  4 colors to choose from.
Well, it is not badly made, ink doesn't bleed through, binding is strong and you can use it lying flat. The only thing is that the glue applied to the back pocket was done lousily and the trimming of the fabric was not so fine.  I hate it.

Anyway, you can say there are hundreds of Moleskine imitations or you can say the form factor is so typical there is no surprise every notebook manufacturer has something similar.  Still I want to know why Quo Vadis did it.

Some other notebooks you may or may not call them Moleskine knock-offs: Modeskin (China?), Brunnen Kompagnon A6 (Germany), Brunnen Notizbuch Traveller A5 (Germany), Manufactum Kompagnon Notebook Small (UK but perhaps origin from Germany), Rationella Media (Sweden), etc etc.