“Disruption” gets talked about a lot in marketing. Every brand wants to shake things up or stand out from the crowd. But if it’s not solving a real problem, it’s just noise.
A better place to start is a simpler question: what actually needs fixing? Until you understand the challenge properly, you don’t know what deserves disrupting. Sometimes it’s the advertising. Sometimes it’s the product. Quite often, it’s the whole way the brand shows up in the market.
That was the opportunity with Russell Hobbs.
The brand has been part of British homes for decades, with a huge amount of trust and familiarity behind it. But in a fast-moving category with lots of new players, the task was to find a way for the brand to stand out again. Not by shouting louder, but by being smarter about how it showed up.
Rather than trying to outspend competitors, the focus was on outthinking the category.
That started with a simple idea: “We Get Life.”
Russell Hobbs has been around nearly 70 years which meant the brand understands the small rhythms of everyday life — the rushed mornings, the constant cups of tea, the little routines that make a house feel like home. The idea moved the brand away from typical kitchen advertising and into something warmer, more human and more relatable.
Crucially, it wasn’t just a line for advertising. It became a lens for thinking about the brand across the whole marketing mix.
On the product side, the range was simplified and organised around clearer customer needs, helping shoppers navigate the products more easily. The focus leaned into categories where Russell Hobbs already had strong credibility, allowing the brand to highlight its expertise. Packaging was refreshed too, with lifestyle imagery that felt more reflective of real homes and everyday life. It helped the brand stand out on shelf while reinforcing the warmth of the new positioning. Price strategy also shifted to support a stronger perception of value, rather than relying heavily on discounts. Distribution was refined to better match a more style conscious audience, while direct to consumer and social channels played a bigger role in reaching modern shoppers.
Finally, promotion focused on standout products that brought the brand idea to life. The Calm kettle, designed to create small moments of calm in busy days, and the Satisfry air fryer, tapping into people’s inner show off, helped lift brand perception across the whole range. The results spoke for themselves. Russell Hobbs secured #3 top selling product for Russell Hobbs and achieved £2.7m in incremental sales value.
