- Etsy launched an ad campaign spotlighting its sellers, a part of a new “brand mission” addressing the rise of automation and mass production as threats to the hand-crafted goods the e-commerce platform was built on, in accordance with a blog post.
- TV ads, social media videos and billboards profile real Etsy merchants. The debut spot, “Human Performance,” challenges automation and “faceless commerce” while showing artisans making their wares.
- The marketing blitz comes as Etsy tweaks its policies and user experience, including with a revamped home page and the implementation of standards that make clear products should be made, designed, sourced or handpicked by sellers.
Etsy is tackling artificial intelligence (AI) anxiety amongst creatives head-on with a new ad campaign and adjustments to its platform guidelines that more strongly implement a human touch. The company is angling to get back to its roots as a house for artisans to thrive and to higher differentiate from e-commerce giants like Amazon and Temu, an emergent overseas competitor that’s found favor with U.S. consumers in search of cheaper goods.
Etsy itself has been subject to backlash as searches replenish with AI-generated items which have received disappointing user reviews. The platform’s reorganized creativity standards make clear that anything sold on Etsy has to have a level of human involvement and moreover includes the choice for merchants so as to add labels sharing greater detail about their processes, materials and tools.
The announcement recognized that many persons are still turning to generative AI for creative ideation and production. Etsy doesn’t prohibit the generative AI tools in its seller handbook, though the usage of AI should be disclosed in listings and the corporate doesn’t allow the sale of AI prompt bundles.
Regardless, the new ad campaign, created with the agency Orchard, is openly skeptical of what automation can accomplish. The hero industrial opens on the road “What does a robot know?” and closes on a rumpled robotic arm under a shower of confetti, overlaid with the tagline “Keep Commerce Human.” A wide range of real Etsy sellers are shown within the spot crafting goods like pottery, furniture, art and clothing. Press materials appeared to make veiled swipes at an ill-fated Apple ad that showed a hydraulic press crushing artists’ tools.
“In an increasingly automated world, Etsy stands for something different,” said David Kolbusz, chief creative officer at Orchard, in a press release. “Our film isn’t anti-tech, it’s pro-human. It’s a reminder that the things that arrive on your step can come from someplace more meaningful than a success center.”
Out-of-home buys in New York and London were placed in areas that are supposed to feel intimate, while Etsy can also be running large billboards championing its sellers by name. The strategy was unveiled by Brad Minor, who was named Etsy’s first chief brand officer earlier this week. Minor previously served as Etsy’s global head of brand marketing and communications.
Etsy saw revenue up 0.8% in Q1, with executives calling out a “difficult environment” for consumer discretionary spending.
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