MASTER Stove Maker ESSE has revealed a bold new advertising campaign launched this month in the influential lifestyle magazine Country Life.
Featuring retro 1930s-style artwork, the vivid new advertisements echo ESSE’s rich British manufacturing heritage and recall the golden age of advertising – before the advent of strident TV commercials and intrusive Internet ads.
Developed by award-winning Manchester agency The Chase, the new advertisement kicks off a winter campaign that focuses on ESSE’s rich heritage of high quality manufacturing in Britain.
The original artwork for the adverts was produced by Andrew Davidson, whose previous commissions have included hand-engraved illustrations for the adult editions of the Harry Potter books and a limited edition set of stamps for the Royal Mail to commemorate the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Peter Richardson, creative director at The Chase, said: “We spent a lot of time looking through the ESSE archives and discovered a really rich seam of bold, illustrated adverts dating back to a time when colour photography was still quite a novelty.
“Today’s glossy adverts are awash with digitally manipulated and enhanced images, so we thought it would be refreshing to buck this trend and revisit some classic themes from the 1920s and 1930s.
“ESSE has always believed in investing in quality British craftsmanship and commissioning such an acclaimed artist as Andrew to create the illustrations for this distinctive new campaign underlines that commitment.
“And while the engineering has advanced to meet new environmental standards, the core values that made an ESSE stove such an aspirational product back then still hold true today.”
Founded in 1854, ESSE established an enviable reputation for manufacturing highly efficient solid fuel stoves and range cookers that provided a dependable source of warmth and sustenance at the heart of the home.
Cleaner and more efficient than an open hearth fire, iconic ESSE products like the ‘Artesse’ or ‘Jeunesse’ were highly aspirational household appliances representing a significant technological advance over the high maintenance open fire.
For more than a century and a half, ESSE remained at the forefront of technological development, consistently producing some of the cleanest-burning heating appliances available.
The same values continue to underpin the current collection of stoves and range cookers. Advanced engineering and hand-crafted quality are the hallmarks of every ESSE product: a cast-iron guarantee to provide a dependable source of warmth and comfort that will endure for decades.
Today, all ESSE solid fuel stoves can be used in Clean Air Zones and high output stoves are all available with an air kit option. An extensive selection of gas-fired and electric stoves and range cookers are also available.
And thanks to patented twin catalytic combustion technology, ESSE solid fuel range cookers are some of the cleanest-burning appliances in the world, beating even the toughest emissions standards by a comfortable margin.
The new advertisements evoke memories of a simpler era, when a solid fuel stove was at the heart of every home. Solid fuel stove technology has moved on since then, but the simple human instinct to cosy up together in front of a real fire remains a powerful symbol of warmth and comfort in the home.
