Branding Handicrafts Products: a Study on Bangladesh

Abstract

"The aim of the study is to examine the branding of handicraft products in Bangladesh. This study has considered twelve districts in Bangladesh as the study area. Researcher has interviewed session with 6 branding and marketing experts first. Based on their opinions on how to brand handicrafts, structured questionnaires have been prepared to collect data from 40 respondents who are entrepreneurs, traders, marketers, suppliers, and other relevant people. Researcher extracts data on the perceptions towards various branding factors in categorical form. This study has used both qualitative and quantitative analysis to identify the impact of branding strategies on the demand for handicrafts. Exploratory factor analysis is used to sort out the statistically significant branding factors followed by multiple regression models to justify the relationship between different branding factors and the demand for handicrafts. This study reveals that the main four variables are handicraft studies, handicraft branding, handicraft promotion and handicraft branding patron associations. Multiple regression result shows that handicraft studies and handicraft branding have a large effect on increasing the demand for handicraft products. This is because handicrafts branding draw the attention to the potential customer about handicrafts products and the high possibility to increase the sales volume. This study recommends cumulative efforts from both public and private sectors to enlarge handicrafts market by incorporating handicraft as a course in each syllabus, advertising properly to encourage people to buy them and reminding the people that handicrafts was part of their ancestor’s lifestyle. Entrepreneurs, government and related organizations can take these steps of branding to increase demand for handicraft products."