Craft villages and artisans can reach the wider market without losing their heritage. The condition is knowing which part is the core identity that cannot be compromised and which is form that can adapt. The real danger lies in refreshing without principle: changing everything or changing nothing both leave the product invisible in the market.
In this article · 6 sections
A Huế conical hat, a piece of Vạn Phúc silk, a Bát Tràng ceramic vase: while they stay in the village, they are heritage. When they step into the wider market, especially the international market or the domestic premium segment, they have to become brands. These are two different jobs, and they call for two different ways of thinking. Most craft villages and artisans are stuck in the middle. They are not "traditional" enough to satisfy those looking for pure heritage. Nor are they "modern" enough to make it into the shopping basket of urban consumers or foreign visitors.
The wrong question leads to wrong decisions
Most of the debate about taking craft villages to market asks the wrong question. "Keep tradition or modernize?" is the wrong question because it forces people to pick one of two extremes. The right question is: of everything that makes up this product, what is the soul that cannot be lost, and what is only form that can adapt to the market?
Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap, defines a brand as a customer's perception, not a logo or packaging. Applied to craft villages: the soul of a craft brand is the technique, the origin, and the story of the person who makes it. Packaging, color and presentation are the parts that can, and need to, adapt as the market changes.
Confusing the two is the root cause of most wrong decisions. Either you keep everything out of fear of losing your roots, or you change everything to look “modern”. Both lead to invisibility.
Invisible in two directions
Artisans and craft villages can become invisible in two opposing ways.
The first way: change nothing. The product is beautiful and the craftsmanship is high, but there is no story told in the language of the target market. There is no identity strong enough to stop the eye of someone scrolling online. There is no distribution system beyond the traditional market or a few craft fairs. Customers may appreciate the heritage, but they don't know where to find it, don't know what the right price is, and don't have enough information to trust it.
The second way: change everything to look like industrial goods. Minimalist Korean-style packaging, an English brand name, stark white studio images. The product loses exactly what makes it worth buying: the story, the trace of the human hand, the feeling of something machines cannot replicate. Customers scroll past because it looks like any other brand, yet it is not as cheap as industrial goods and not as special as genuine heritage goods.
A brand is behavior, not just a coat of paint. Products, environments, communication, and behavior must be consistent with each other to build trust.
Wally Olins, On Brand
The boundary between essence and form
To escape the deadlock, it is necessary to clearly separate the two layers in any handcrafted product.
The soul layer, which allows no compromise, has four parts. They are the handcraft technique and process, the local or traditional materials that shape the product's character, the story of its origin and the people who make it, and the elements that create a difference machines cannot replicate.
The layer of form can and should adapt, and it has four parts: a storytelling language for each market, packaging and presentation suited to the distribution channel, pricing and product packing, and the means of communicating with customers.
Jean-Noël Kapferer, author of the brand identity prism (a model that analyzes a brand through 6 facets), observes that physique, meaning physical appearance, is only one of the six facets that make up an identity. The rest are personality, culture, relationship with customers, reflection, and self-image. When craft villages talk about refreshing their brand, they usually think only of physique. They overlook the other five facets, where heritage is truly kept.
Lessons from brands that have succeeded
You don't need to look abroad for examples. Cocoon, a purely Vietnamese cosmetics brand, built its entire story on local ingredients: Bến Tre coconut oil, Đắk Lắk coffee, Đắk Lắk butter, Quảng Nam melaleuca. This was a decision to build identity from an origin that cannot be copied, not simply a marketing strategy. As a result, Cocoon's sheet masks hold 95.1% of that product line's market share in their segment (according to internal market data that has been publicly cited). The principle applies fully to craft: a specific origin story, with place names, people's names and a process, is something no competitor can copy.
In the international fashion industry, brands like Aime Leon Dore, often shortened to ALD, don't sell shirts. They sell a worldview tied to the founder's perspective. Without that "world," the product is just fabric and thread. Craft artisans have a similar advantage, even a stronger one: their story is real, not constructed.
When should we call it rebranding
Not every change is a rebrand. Nor does every craft village or artisan need a rebrand to reach a larger market. Sometimes what is needed is to build a brand identity system for the first time, not to change what already exists.
A true rebrand is only necessary in one of the following situations. The target market has changed so much that the old message no longer reaches it. The product has fundamentally changed but the identity is still the old one. Or there is an important event, such as expanding internationally, entering a premium distribution channel, or partnering with a large organization that demands a different level of professionalism.
Byron Sharp, in How Brands Grow, emphasizes that being easy to recognize matters more than being different. If a craft village already has some distinctive assets, meaning the colors, patterns and characteristic presentation that loyal customers recognize at once, it should keep them and make them clearer. This works better than replacing them with an entirely new visual language.
What craft villages need to do first
Before hiring someone to design a logo or packaging, there are three questions that need honest answers, not just answers that sound good:
- Who the target customers really are, and what they are buying for, not what you want them to buy.
- Among all that makes this product, what is the element that cannot be replicated by machines or larger capital?
- Is the current distribution system and customer touchpoints conveying that story correctly, or are they contradicting it?
These three questions are not design questions. They are strategic questions. The answers form the foundation of every decision about form that follows, from packaging to catalogue, from how you photograph products to how you introduce them on social media.
Craft villages and artisans are not lacking in stories. They lack the system to deliver those stories to the right people, at the right time, in a language they understand. That is the role of the brand, not the product.
Positioning is not something you do with the product. It is something you do in the minds of potential customers.
Al Ries and Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
References
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (2003). Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow (2010). Wally Olins, On Brand (2003). Jean-Noël Kapferer, The New Strategic Brand Management (2012). UNESCO, Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development. Craft Council UK, Craft Futures (2021). McKinsey & Company, The Business Value of Design (2018).