While Amazon Prime Day is in full swing, Etsy is offering shoppers a different response to a week of discounts, speed and mass online shopping. Instead of competing solely on prices and delivery, the platform has chosen a campaign that directly, wittily and somewhat provocatively reminds shoppers that behind every purchase there is a choice about who receives their money.
The campaign is titled Shop Other Jeffs, and the idea is simple: if the world is already going to spend several days talking about shopping, then one Jeff does not have to be the only name in that story.
The allusion is clear. The campaign relies on the recognizability of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, but it does not keep the attention on him. Instead, Etsy puts more than 5,000 sellers on its platform who are also named Jeff in the spotlight, but who are not billionaires, owners of global retail empires or symbols of automated commerce.
Among them are Jeff Brown, a ceramicist who has been making pottery by hand since 1977, Jeff Zabriskie, a woodworker who makes furniture from sustainably sourced wood and reclaimed trees, and Jeff Risinger, a lighting designer whose lamp-making hobby grew into a business that now ships handmade products to customers around the world.
Through their stories, Etsy reminds shoppers of what distinguishes the platform from large online retailers: a direct relationship between buyer and seller, handmade work, a personal approach and products that do not come from an anonymous production line. The message of the campaign is not only that there is an alternative to Amazon, but that shopping can also be a decision about what kind of economy we want to support.
According to the company, those 5,000 Jeffs are only a small part of a broader community of nearly six million independent sellers on Etsy. Among them are artists, designers, collectors, craftspeople and small entrepreneurs who build their businesses through a global marketplace while maintaining a sense of personal communication with buyers.
The campaign was created by the agency Orchard, and it continues the broader brand platform Celebrate Being Human. At a time when online retail increasingly depends on automation, algorithms and speed, Etsy is building its brand around the opposite value: the human touch.
As part of Shop Other Jeffs, a limited-edition collection of products created by sellers on the platform has also been presented. The collection includes T-shirts, hats, keychains and other items with messages celebrating “other Jeffs”, meaning small sellers who stand behind their products.
The campaign is running on television, social media, including YouTube and TikTok, as well as through outdoor activations in New York, Seattle and Washington. The campaign also includes takeovers of Etsy’s website and app, bringing the message to shoppers at the moment when they are browsing and choosing products.
