Love might be in the air for Valentine's Day, but QUT researchers have found not all consumers are smitten with handmade products at the point of purchase, especially if they like to shop at speed.
Tuba Degirmenci, a marketing PhD student with the QUT School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, has led new research examining whether marketing a product as handmade vs machine-made has any advantages.
She says the key lies in knowing who you're speaking to. For shoppers who take their time and carefully consider their gift buying, emotional language will resonate. For speed shoppers, keep it simple and don't slow them down with details like how it was crafted.
Made With Love: Examining Consumer Engagement With Handmade Versus Machine-Made Production Cues, published this month in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour, also found that big global retailers are strategically hijacking the handmade label to connect with consumers.
"Handmade products are traditionally promoted as 'made with love', especially for occasions like Valentine's Day when gifting is a central focus. The messaging often emphasises that extra care and affection went into crafting them, evoking stronger emotions of love," said Ms Degirmenci.
"Such language is aimed at tugging at our heartstrings and convincing us that such gifts are more thoughtful and special compared to mass-produced, machine-made alternatives.
"This approach is supported by prior research which shows that handmade labels can lead to higher positive emotions– it's known as the handmade effect. It's also been shown that giving handmade gifts can promote social relationships."
Co-researcher Professor Gary Mortimer said handmade products tapped into a growing desire for shopping experiences characterised by human interactions.
"Global players like Amazon and IKEA have cottoned on to this and are strategically introducing handmade products to connect at a deeper emotional level with consumers," Professor Mortimer said.
"However, our research has found not all consumers respond the same way to these marketing messages.
"It really depends on how they approach purchase decisions. Low-locomotion individuals, for example, take their time and can thoroughly consider their purchase decisions, which makes them more likely to buy into the handmade ethos.
"High-locomotion people like to quickly achieve results without getting bogged down in the details. They are the 'grab-and-go' shopper. They will still buy handmade, but they don't need the extra details to sell it to them."
Associate Professor Frank Mathmann, who conducted the research with Ms Degirmenci and Professor Mortimer, said they ran two online studies.
"In the first study, we asked participants to imagine buying a gift for a loved one. They were split into three groups and presented with a photo of the same mug. One group was informed that the mug was 'handmade,' another told it was 'machine-made,' and the last group was not offered any 'production cue,'" Dr Mathmann said.
"We also measured how much 'love' they felt the mug contained and how much they would pay for it. The handmade mug was considered to evoke more love and led to a higher willingness to pay. However, this was only true for those with a low-locomotion orientation.
"For the high-locomotion 'doer' personalities, the backstory of how the mug was made wasn't as important as just getting a product they needed.
"The benefits of the handmade label even backfired for these types of consumers. They actually felt more love for the mug if it had no label at all."
Study two involved an automated text analysis of social media data validating the moderating role of locomotion in a real-world context by analysing the marketer-generated content of more than 9,000 Facebook posts.
"Social media is a powerful tool that marketers use to communicate. We looked at how posts for handmade products influence consumer engagement, particularly in terms of social media shares," Ms Degirmenci said.
"The results indicated that the higher an individual's locomotion orientation was, the fewer social media 'shares' for handmade products occurred."
Read the full study online at http://doi.org/10.1002/cb.2455
Main image: Tuba Degirmenci, Professor Gary Mortimer (top right) and Associate Professor Frank Mathmann
