Frigidaire – the Electrolux Group’s largest home appliance brand in North America – has a 100-year history of introducing first-to-market products that shape modern-day living, from the first combination refrigerator/freezer to the first oven with integrated Air Fry.
Yet despite its legacy of “firsts,” the brand’s reputation wasn’t keeping pace. Consumers saw Frigidaire as familiar, but not modern. In traditional and social media, its innovation story wasn’t breaking through: the brand ranked fourth in share of voice and trailed competitors on social with a .23% Instagram engagement rate versus a competitor’s .27%.
After five years of development, Frigidaire was ready to unveil its biggest leap forward: a reengineered oven that transforms how heat is generated, directed, and contained. The new Gallery Range with Stone-Baked Pizza Mode is the first and only home oven that reaches 750°F+, delivering restaurant-quality, leopard-char pizza in as little as two minutes. This product represented the future of the brand — but only if stakeholders recognized Frigidaire as a leader in consumer-driven innovation, not just a trusted legacy appliance maker.
The idea driving our work was to use this launch as a brand reset. A moment to reintroduce Frigidaire as a modern, category-defining force in the kitchen appliance space. We set out to build a compelling narrative that tied Frigidaire’s century of “firsts” to this new, industry-leading innovation.
In short, 2025 became the year to reclaim Frigidaire’s innovation story and create a true mic-drop moment for a 100-year-old brand ready to lead again.
Relevance required more than a product launch—it required a brand reset. Our modernization strategy unfolded across two coordinated tracks, grounded in a clear consumer insight: home cooks want professional-level performance without professional-level effort. They crave speed, versatility, and precision, but only when it feels intuitive. Stone-Baked Pizza Mode embodied that tension with perfectly–chef-caliber quality made easy.
Guided by this insight, The Variable crafted the brand platform “Daire to Expect More,” concepted the “No Sweat” product narrative, and produced comprehensive creative across broadcast, CTV, digital, and social designed to modernize perception, increase relevance, and drive demand. This refreshed identity became the shared foundation for all partner agencies, unifying the brand around a single narrative of practical innovation.
In parallel, Ruder Finn and The FeedFeed focused on galvanizing the brand’s community. We built an always-on content ecosystem featuring trending recipes, kitchen hacks, “Behind the Innovation” engineering stories, proactive community management and daily commenting, and a steady drumbeat of Stone-Baked Pizza teasers. Pre-launch influencer partnerships highlighted key products, reinforcing the brand’s credibility leading up to the oven reveal.
This sustained approach warmed audiences and culminated in a Pizza Takeover across Frigidaire’s social channels — refreshed profile assets, a bold 3-tile grid, and Reels that signaled a modern, culturally fluent brand. Together, these dual tracks modernized Frigidaire’s identity, reset consumer expectations, and reestablished its leadership in practical innovation.
With the brand revitalized and momentum building, it was time to activate the next phase: bringing the innovation to market.
Ruder Finn secured an exclusive with Fast Company, spotlighting the Gallery Range’s breakthrough engineering and immediately reframing Frigidaire as a category pioneer.
EP+Co then brought innovation directly to consumers through the Taste the Difference Mobile Tour, serving 48,000+ slices of stone-baked pizza from custom-built ovens. The tour’s centerpiece — The Dough Mobile, a redesigned golf cart with spinning pizza wheels, glowing signage, and a mounted oven — became an experiential magnet at festivals, foodie gatherings, and sporting events. EP+Co leveraged data modeling to forecast demand, optimize routes, and refine the footprint, while QR tracking and social analytics quantified impact across seven markets.
A cultural inflection point arrived when Barstool’s Dave Portnoy, infamous for his tough scoring, reviewed the pizza ahead of the Texas vs. Ohio State game. Calling it “restaurant quality” and “impressive,” he gave it a “high seven” — a standout rating that validated the oven’s performance among pizza purists.
Finally, on September 17, Frigidaire unveiled the Gallery Range with Stone-Baked Pizza Mode at a high-impact New York City event hosted by record-breaking comedian Sebastian Maniscalo. Top-tier media and lifestyle influencers experienced restaurant-quality pizza, explored 15+ cooking modes, and captured content throughout an elevated “pizza party” environment. Sebastian’s media tour generated widespread coverage across PEOPLE, Southern Living, Delish, Reader’s Digest, and more.
To amplify the moment, Ruder Finn and The FeedFeed activated an extended roster of paid and earned creators — including Nonna Gracie (4M), Just Jazzy (1M), and Justin & Mo (200K) — while transforming Frigidaire’s owned social channels into a full pizza-centric celebration.
The launch of the Frigidaire Gallery Range with Stone-Baked Pizza Mode exceeded every objective — modernizing brand perception, strengthening relevance, and driving measurable consumer action. It became the most successful product introduction in Frigidaire’s history, with impact continuing to build.
We set out to modernize the brand—and we did.
Frigidaire’s Brand Health Tracker shows meaningful perception lifts:
We aimed to increase social relevance and engagement—and surpassed benchmarks across the board.
We needed breakthrough visibility—and delivered it at scale.
We set out to create real-world proof—and delivered it nationwide.
The Taste the Difference Mobile Tour delivered:
These results demonstrate that the campaign didn’t just launch an oven. It reintroduced a 100-year-old brand with renewed relevance, cultural credibility, and measurable business impact.
