An exploration of the perception of brand management and marketing in craftsmanship: structured abstract

Craftsmanship plays a substantial role in the economic environment, with more than 300 billion euros in sales and more than three million employees in France, for instance. It has, however, been little studied in marketing, where research has mostly focused on consumer goods or services provided by industrial firms. Such firms are often distinct from craft enterprises in that they usually have a dedicated marketing department to work on brand identity (Kapferer 1996). In the present study, we specifically consider independent artisans, whose products can be found in local shops. Recent research on the concept of the human brand can help us understand the artisan as a brand (Thomson 2006; Moulard et al. 2015). A professional human brand can be measured by two dimensions—expertise and creativity (Parmentier and Fischer 2010)—both of which are essential for the full development of a human brand (Arnould and Dion 2013). These two dimensions also characterize the artisan: He can be evaluated according to his skills based on his knowledge of the craft, know-how, and expertise (Simeoni 1999; Amans et al. 2012) and according to his artistic qualities in relation to the creativity he reveals in his handmade work (Loup and Rakotovahiny 2011).