OPINION DRIVER ACC hopes windshield interlayer will help reshape public view of chemicals.

Stephen Gardner, who oversees communications for ACC's good chemistry campaign, says the new ads, which emphasize chemistry rather than chemicals, are in sync with other changes the industry group has made in an effort to alter public perception of the chemical industry. These include changing its name from the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) to the American Chemistry Council and focusing on the "business of chemistry" rather than on the chemical industry.

For the pilot program, ACC is running three different print ads in newspapers, two radio ads, and one billboard. The ads seem to take a page from what is seen as a very successful campaign by the American Plastics Council. The APC ads, which have been running in newspapers, in magazines, and on television since 1999, have stressed the importance of plastics in society and, since the end of last month, plastics' health and safety benefits.

The ACC ads take a similar tone. One that refers to polyvinyl butyral glass interlayer ran in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette earlier this month in conjunction with the annual Pittsburgh Chemical Day. It pictures a young girl in the rear seat of an automobile with a headline, "When Julie is onboard, she's safer in our chemistry."

Beneath the picture is a caption: "Thanks to chemistry, we have a formula that causes automobile glass to break in a safer way without forming potentially deadly shards. Today, this innovation is standard on all cars sold in the United States and has saved thousands of drivers from serious injury and even death."

The test markets were chosen because of their diversity. According to ACC, Pittsburgh tends toward the "corporate," and the Baton Rouge area is more industrial. Springfield was picked because Massachusetts is viewed as a more "green," environmentally conscious, state. "We wanted to see how it plays there," Gardner says.

This is not ACC's first foray into public advertising. It ran a multimillion-dollar campaign in the early 1990s, while it was still CMA, which can be termed only moderately successful. At the time, the best that association officers could say was that the campaign prevented further erosion of public opinion.

While there are no hard data on ACC's campaign yet, anecdotal evidence suggests it is going well, Gardner says. Each ad contains a toll-free telephone number enabling readers "to find out more about how chemistry is helping people." He says that as of early last week, ACC had received about 100 calls. None was negative.

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