99piApril 21, 2024
Now We're Cooking
How the gas industry spent 100 years branding a kitchen appliance as an emotional status symbol.
How the gas industry spent 100 years branding a kitchen appliance as an emotional status symbol.
The Full Story
The phrase 'now we're cooking with gas' is one of the most successful pieces of corporate branding in history. In the 1930s, the natural gas industry was terrified of losing the home market to electricity. To fight back, an industry executive successfully planted the phrase with Bob Hope’s writers, turning a marketing slogan into a global idiom for peak performance. This was the opening salvo in a century-long campaign to transform a dangerous, methane-leaking appliance into a symbol of culinary status.
From hiring celebrity 'influencers' in the 1950s to commissioning a cringeworthy 1980s rap song about gas being 'so hot,' the industry worked tirelessly to forge an emotional bond between consumers and the blue flame. They knew that while no one cares if their water heater is electric, people have a visceral, tactile relationship with their stove. By winning the kitchen, the gas industry ensured that fossil fuel pipelines remained the primary infrastructure of the American home, successfully drowning out forty years of scientific warnings about benzene, carbon monoxide, and childhood asthma.
From hiring celebrity 'influencers' in the 1950s to commissioning a cringeworthy 1980s rap song about gas being 'so hot,' the industry worked tirelessly to forge an emotional bond between consumers and the blue flame. They knew that while no one cares if their water heater is electric, people have a visceral, tactile relationship with their stove. By winning the kitchen, the gas industry ensured that fossil fuel pipelines remained the primary infrastructure of the American home, successfully drowning out forty years of scientific warnings about benzene, carbon monoxide, and childhood asthma.