Investigating the changing forms, dynamics and trajectories of the artisan and craft sector, this timely book considers the opportunities, challenges, and uncertainties associated with artisanal businesses in new economic times.
Exploring how artisanal and craft products remain vibrant embodiments of tradition, heritage, authenticity and creativity, the book explores how these qualities are being harnessed and transformed to enable artisanal businesses to exploit the opportunities presented by technological innovation and evolving consumption patterns for their future viability and vitality. Revolutionary advancement in digital technologies offer ‘game-changing’ possibilities for artisanship and craft, across a spectrum ranging from production practices to e-commerce. But such technological advancements also present challenges to how artisanship sustains its important ‘traditional’ associations, and how it builds on its relationship with the ethical, the sustainable and the local. Featuring an international range of case studies, chapters exemplify how artisanal organisations can revitalise their business models, using innovative branding and marketing strategies, and entrepreneurship, to utilise the best of both the past and the future.
This cutting-edge book will prove invaluable to students and scholars of marketing, business studies and sociology who are interested in contemporary innovation in artisanship and craft. With practical advice from industry experts, it also serves as a useful resource for practitioners and stakeholders within the artisanal and craft sector who might be concerned with the impact of digitalisation on the field.
Investigating the changing forms, dynamics and trajectories of the artisan and craft sector, this timely book considers the opportunities, challenges, and uncertainties associated with artisanal businesses in new economic times.
Exploring how artisanal and craft products remain vibrant embodiments of tradition, heritage, authenticity and creativity, the book explores how these qualities are being harnessed and transformed to enable artisanal businesses to exploit the opportunities presented by technological innovation and evolving consumption patterns for their future viability and vitality. Revolutionary advancement in digital technologies offer ‘game-changing’ possibilities for artisanship and craft, across a spectrum ranging from production practices to e-commerce. But such technological advancements also present challenges to how artisanship sustains its important ‘traditional’ associations, and how it builds on its relationship with the ethical, the sustainable and the local. Featuring an international range of case studies, chapters exemplify how artisanal organisations can revitalise their business models, using innovative branding and marketing strategies, and entrepreneurship, to utilise the best of both the past and the future.
This cutting-edge book will prove invaluable to students and scholars of marketing, business studies and sociology who are interested in contemporary innovation in artisanship and craft. With practical advice from industry experts, it also serves as a useful resource for practitioners and stakeholders within the artisanal and craft sector who might be concerned with the impact of digitalisation on the field.
Contents:
Foreword by François Colbert xiii
Acknowledgements xv
1 Introduction to The Artisan Brand 1
Jon Mulholland, Marta Massi and Alessandra Ricci
PART I UNDERSTANDING CRAFT AND ARTISANAL
MARKETS
2 Understanding of the concept of ‘craft’ from the
perspective of Italian consumers 14
Alessandra Ricci and Marta Massi
3 The UK market for craft: a review of Crafts Council evidence
26
Julia Bennett
4 Social embedding, artisanal markets and cultural fields:
quality, value and marketing in the cases of new wave
custom motorcycles and boutique guitar pedals 42
Jon Mulholland and Peter Webb
PART II FROM TRADITION TO INNOVATION:
TRENDS AND ISSUES IN ARTISANAL AND
CRAFT MAKING
5 Neo-artisanal practice and the nostalgic: traditional
makers’ identities, innovation and sustainability in
neo-artisanal production 63
Laura Quinn
6 Innovation in craft: creating new value through art 81
Giacomo Magnani and Laura Bresolin
7 The innovative logics of digital manufacturing: the case
study of 3DiTALY 102
Daniela Corsaro and Mirko Olivieri
PART III ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND BUSINESS
MODELS IN CRAFT AND ARTISANAL MARKETS
8 Entrepreneurs in action? Motivations for crafting a career
in handmade goods 120
Victoria R. Bell
9 New business models for craft: the case of Artemest 136
Chiara Piancatelli and Alessandra Ricci
PART IV MARKETING IN CRAFT AND ARTISANAL MARKETS
10 The new rise of artisanship in Kenya: evidence from
artisan entrepreneurs 157
Alisa Sydow and Isabella Maggioni
11 Slow production, less consumption: righteous approaches
to the paradox of craft businesses 177
Richard E. Ocejo
12 The resurgence of craft retailing: marketing and branding
strategies in the food and beverage sector 193
Alessandro Gerosa
13 Innovating through craft: from happenstance to strategic culture
209
Ginevra Addis
Afterword by Maurizio Dallocchio 226
Afterword by Franco Cologni 228
Index 230
Edited by Jon Mulholland, Associate Professor, University of the West of England, UK, Alessandra Ricci, Post Doctoral research fellow, Department of Business, Law, Economics and Consumer Behavior, IULM University, Milan, Italy and Marta Massi, Assistant Professor, Athabasca University, Canada
‘In this excellent book, the editors have mustered a diverse
collection of scholars and practitioners to examine both
long-running and cutting-edge trends in the production and
promotion of craft and artisanal products. Necessarily
international, interdisciplinary and richly evidenced with
intriguing case studies, the collection makes an important and
timely contribution to understanding how notions of skill, passion
and authenticity are central to the aesthetics, morals and
economics of the craft and artisan sectors.’
*Thomas Thurnell-Read, Loughborough University, UK*
‘With rich case studies and empirical analysis by multidisciplinary
scholars and practicing artisans, The Artisan Brand offers
unparalleled insight into contemporary artisan entrepreneurship.
Each chapter invites readers into the “why” and “how” of the
current cultural and market renaissance of artisan goods, while
revealing future possibilities for artisanship itself.’
*Kristy Leissle, University of Washington Bothell, US and
Cocoapreneurship Institute of Ghana*
‘The Artisan Brand guides us through a fascinating journey of
discovery about the complex challenges artisans and craft firms
face in a twenty-first century marketplace flooded with products
and services often branded as “artisanal”. The contributors to this
book use theory, research, and case studies to rigorously examine
how innovation and tradition are combining to transform the artisan
economy.’
*William J. Byrnes, Professor Emeritus of Arts Administration,
Southern Utah University, US*
‘The Artisan Brand: Entrepreneurship and Marketing in Contemporary
Craft Economies will resonate with anyone interested in appealing
to consumers seeking enchantment or authenticity via the artisanal,
crafted, handmade, or skilled production of goods and services that
celebrate provenance, diversity, localism, and makers. For
researchers, this is a powerful volume that expands one’s
perspective, which is exactly what a book on the craft brand should
do!’
*Michael Beverland, University of Sussex Business School, UK*
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