Etsy’s New Ad Campaign, Site Policies Aim to ‘Keep Commerce Human’

Etsy’s latest ad campaign aims to elevate the artisans and craftspeople that populate the online marketplace with handcrafted wares and unique goods.

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And behind the scenes, the company is working to safeguard its platform from the influence of mass-produced junk.

The Brooklyn-based business is taking over billboards across New York City and London and splashing sellers’ likenesses across screens big and small in a series of promotional videos. “Keep Commerce Human” is the campaign’s motto, and according to the platform, the mission is simple.

“Bring our sellers’ names front and center to remind buyers who makes Etsy so special.”

“Shine a spotlight on the passion, creativity and love Etsy sellers bring to every piece they make.”

“Reinforce the importance of our mission to Keep Commerce Human in a world of increasingly commoditized, soulless manufacturing.”

A new homepage configuration showcases a curated assortment of goods, including pieces from sellers featured in the campaign. “Our sellers are the heart of our marketplace, and their unique human touch is what makes Etsy, Etsy,” chief brand officer Brad Minor wrote in a blog post on the company’s website this week.

As Etsy rolled out its consumer-facing campaign, it concurrently unveiled a series of site policy updates in a message to sellers that brought its mission into sharper focus.

In a memo entitled “Protecting and strengthening Etsy’s brand mission,” CEO Josh Silverman elucidated the platform’s new Creativity Standards.

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Moving forward, all items listed for sale on Etsy must be designated as made by a seller (physical items crafted by hand or using tools), designed by a seller (original designs or downloadable digital art), sourced by a seller (craft supplies, party décor or personalized products that can be printed on demand) or handpicked by a seller (vintage goods and items from nature).

A company spokesperson told Sourcing Journal that while Etsy isn’t making changes to what products are allowed on the site, the marketplace is heeding consumer and seller requests that it clarify its policy.

With marketplaces like Amazon and Temu overrun with mass-produced, unbranded landfill fodder, it was only a matter of time before Etsy would need to circle the wagons to keep the crap from creeping in.

The group has been heavily invested in recent years in enforcing its legacy handmade policy, removing four times as many non-compliant items in 2023 as it did in 2022, the spokesperson said. In 2023, the platform also doubled the total number of listings it removed for policy violations from the previous year—a feat attributed to improvements to its automated detection systems.

Scaling enforcement is a big priority for the group as the marketplace continues to balloon in size, housing over 100 million unique items from more than 7 million sellers. It is continuing to invest in AI tools to improve the speed and volume of violation detection, the spokesperson added, and it spent more than $50 million in 2023 alone to bolster Etsy ’s Trust and Safety team and improve enforcement technology and operations.

While Etsy isn’t narrowing its category focus, it’s doubling down on the policies and enforcement protocols that have always defined its business, the spokesperson said.

“We recognize that, in today’s world, makers almost always use tools to bring their creativity to life,” Silverman wrote in his Tuesday note to sellers. “Sculptors and painters use chisels and paintbrushes; furniture makers use power tools; and many artists today use digital tools, such as computer-aided and 3D-printing techniques, print-on-demand tools, and, most recently, GenAI tools to bring human ideas into visual form.”

“The common thread that weaves through all of the creative goods allowed on Etsy is human imagination and involvement,” he added. “We are, and will remain, the marketplace for original items from real people.”

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