Zanussi - History

History

The Zanussi Company began as the small workshop of Antonio Zanussi in 1916. The enterprising 26-year-old son of a blacksmith in Pordenone in Northeastern Italy began the business by making home stoves and wood-burning ovens.

Antonio Zanussi’s, most spectacular stroke of imaginative insight came in 1933 when he launched REX – the company’s new trademark at that time and a well-known presence on the Italian market even today – to coincide with a huge media event of the day: this was the new record for a transatlantic crossing (Gibraltar to New York) with which the Italian liner “Rex” conquered the coveted Blue Riband. The linking of his innovative new “Model 503” oven to this spectacular Italian triumph was a supreme example of marketing genius at a time when the word was still unknown in Europe.

In 1946 Antonio Zanussi died and management of the family business passed to his sons Lino and Guido. Under the inspired leadership of Lino, the Company developed into a modern industrial concern and in 1951, with a workforce of over 300, the company began to diversify into gas and electric (and combined gas/electric ovens); and, with growing availability and popularity of gas cylinders, it brought out the first gas cooker – the legendary Rex 401.

1954 was a crucial year: the first fridges came off the company’s production line, a new factory was opened at Porcia (it is still one of the world’s most important in the field of household appliances) and a Study Centre was established to research and design new appliances.

At the end of the 1950s, Zanussi launched its “Tropic System” featuring a rounded style that was to dictate the look of Italian fridges for years to come.

1958 saw the production of the first Zanussi washing machines. With an avant-garde approach that created close interdisciplinary contact between designer and technical expert, the company developed appliances that were far ahead of their time in terms of compactness, functional efficiency and ergonomics. The same strategy underlay the creation, a year later, of the company’s Design and research Centre.

In 1959 Zanussi also launched the first “Supermarket” fridge with automatic defrosting and two compartments with separate temperature controls. Meanwhile the washing machines were already into the second generation, with front-loading, 5 washing programmes and numerous safety devices, developed particularly with an eye for the requirements of the important German market.

1960 was television year for Zanussi, not only because the company started production of TV sets but also because it marked the beginning of the series of amusing TV ads for Rex appliances featuring the famous French actor Fernandel.

In 1962 Italian overtook Germany in the manufacture of household appliances and Zanussi exported its products to 60 countries.

1964 saw the first appearance in Italy of a fridge with a –12C compartment that was suitable for the conservation of frozen food – the “Freezermarket” Rex – and at a price that was half what fridges had cost ten years earlier!

In the following year, 1965, Zanussi put its first dishwasher on the market.

The next decade was one of important purchases, with the Becchi, Castor, Zoppas and Triplex brands all joining the Zanussi Group, and of the start-up of manufacturing outside Italy. Zanussi advanced to leadership of the Italian household appliance industry with a 25% market share, and was amongst the foremost producers in Europe with 10% of sales throughout the continent.

The death of Lino Zanussi and his closest assistants in an air crash in Spain on 18 June 1968 inevitably affected the management of the company and marked a change of strategy.

In the meantime the economic situation in Italy had also changed and with ambitious plans for diversification undermined by the difficulties being experienced by Italian industry in general, Zanussi slipped towards serious financial crisis in the late ‘70s and the first half of the 1980s.

The rescue process began in 1985 thanks to Electrolux which, following the take-over completed in late 1984, injected new capital and cut all non-core business activities.

Innovation and design has and remains the cornerstone of success for Zanussi: a glance at products such as OZ, Zoe and Teo encapsulates this, while today's technologies and user-friendly designs continue to build on this heritage - for example, in the early 1980s Zanussi launched the Jetsystem washing machine range to great acclaim whilst at the same time running the “Appliance Of Science” advertising campaign in the UK. The campaign is acknowledged as one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time and still remembered by many today. The Jetsystem is still a leading technology.