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Two bored supermarket workers are the unlikely stars of a new series of UK-created TV commercials for Electrolux, which will roll out across Europe to launch the company's Liberation fridge.

Bartle Bogle Hegarty produced the six 30-second films which go on air in the UK - on the Eurosport channel - next Monday and in Denmark next month.

The initiative comes amid a rising demand for Electrolux white-goods products across Western Europe, where its market increased in volume by 9 per cent during the first quarter of the year compared with the corresponding period in 1999.

Stockholm-based Electrolux, the world's largest manufacturer of powered appliances, claims the Liberation will keep food fresher because of its frost-free and cool-air features that ensure a constant temperature level throughout the whole fridge.

The endline for the ads is 'Keep food fresher for longer,' promoting the idea that the fridge is so efficient that fewer visits to the supermarket are necessary.

All the films continue using the strapline: 'We understand,' the idea central to the campaigns produced by BBH for the past two years.

The commercials illustrate the efficiency theme by featuring two supermarket cashiers left with so little to do that they are forced to find ways of amusing themselves to relieve their boredom.

In one ad, they stage a bowling game using melons, and in another they make beards out of sticky tape. A third ad sees them staging a sword-fight using baguettes.

Kevin Thomas directed the commercials for Godman, using a supermarket in Prague, which closed for the day.

John O'Keeffe, BBH's creative director, said: 'The ads demonstrate the product's benefits with a very simple and original idea.'

They were written by Alex Grieve and art directed by Adrian Rossi. Media buying is handled by local agencies in Scandinavia.

The advertising coincides with a global brand-building effort by Electrolux in the wake of its pounds 33 million repurchase of the Electrolux trademark and company name in North America.

The company has been frustrated by its inability to build a global brand because it did not own its name in North America, which accounts for 40 per cent of its sales.

The deal means that Electrolux will keep key US brand names, including Frigidaire and Kelvinator.

BBH won the Electrolux pan-European account from Ogilvy & Mather in 1993 with a brief to reposition it as a quality brand.