From Functional to Family: Rangemaster’s Recipe for Growth
When Rangemaster and Mr. President set out to launch “Part of the Family,” the ambition was to create more than a campaign. They aimed to build a long-term brand platform that could extend beyond advertising into internal culture, retail buy-in, trade, sales and media.
Operating within a low-emotion appliances category, which averages just 2.6 Stars for long-term growth potential on System1’s Test Your Ad database, the challenge was twofold: drive emotional engagement in a functional space, while also reigniting growth at both brand and category level.
A thorough brand diagnosis revealed a clear opportunity. While Rangemaster benefited from strong conversion once considered, brand awareness remained a key barrier to growth. At the same time, the wider category faced declining relevance, with many consumers defaulting to built-in ovens over range cookers. This highlighted the need not only to strengthen the brand, but to reframe the role of the category itself.
Rooted in heritage, loyalist insight and segmentation, the opportunity was to position Rangemaster as something more meaningful than an appliance, tapping into its role at the heart of the home. The resulting platform, “Part of the Family,” sought to move beyond functional messaging to build emotional resonance and distinctiveness at scale.
Critically, having taken a structured, evidence-based approach to diagnosis, the next step was ensuring that creative execution delivered against this strategic opportunity. This created a clear role for early-stage testing and iterative development, enabling Rangemaster to validate and refine creative work before launch, maximising its potential to drive both brand and commercial impact.
In collaboration with System1, Rangemaster and Mr. President embedded early-stage testing into the creative development process, using Test Your Ad to evaluate the “New Family Member” concept from initial idea through to finished film.
At the heart of this approach was a focus on building long-term brand effects. System1’s Star Rating, which uses emotional response to predict long-term growth, memorability and cut-through, was used to guide creative decisions at every stage, benchmarking performance both over time and against the category average of 2.6 Stars.
This ensured the campaign prioritised emotional, brand-building creative rather than short-term, product-led messaging. In line with broader effectiveness evidence, the team recognised that while sales activation can drive immediate results, it is brand-building advertising that delivers both long-term growth and short-term impact. By focusing on emotional resonance and distinctive storytelling, Rangemaster aimed to create work that would not only build memory structures over time, but also drive immediate commercial returns.
Testing also played a critical role in validating the strategic platform. By measuring audience response early, the team could refine the balance between heritage, humour and relatability, ensuring the “Part of the Family” idea landed with broad audiences and reinforced the brand’s distinctive positioning.
Rather than relying on post-campaign evaluation, this iterative approach allowed Rangemaster to de-risk creative decisions, build internal confidence, and maximise the effectiveness of the final campaign before it went to market.
“We knew we had struck gold in our initial research sessions when consumers started talking about their range cookers like beloved relatives. The challenge as an agency was translating that human truth into a creative platform, and then protecting that pure emotion from being watered down by standard appliance messaging. System1 was essential to that process. It ratified our gut feeling and qualitative research with hard data. Proving early on that the ‘Part of the Family’ concept had exceptional emotional intensity gave the team the total confidence to back a disruptive, highly creative campaign,” said Dr Michael Anton, Head of Intelligence at Mr. President.
Not only did testing reveal strong long-term growth potential, with the campaign achieving a 4.6 Star Rating, +1.7 Stars above the category average, it translated directly into commercial impact. Rangemaster saw an extraordinary 47% increase in volume, outperforming targets by nearly 3x.
The ad now ranks in the all-time top ten for the household goods category on System1’s Competitive Edge database, spanning almost 300 campaigns. A clear demonstration that zigging with showmanship in a functional category delivers outsized returns.
“We set out to ‘put on a show’ with this campaign. It needed to stand out, break from stale category conventions and do something different. The team landed on a brilliant creative idea, and System1 testing helped us refine and optimise it by listening directly to consumers. It’s paid off, and we’re thrilled with how it’s been received,” said Emma Cowley, Senior Brand Manager at AGA Rangemaster.
"We set out to create something distinctive and entertaining. System1 testing helped us refine the idea with real consumer feedback, and the results speak for themselves"
Emma Cowley Senior Brand Manager at AGA Rangemaster
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