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American Chemistry Council Launches Plastics PR Ad

What does the ad portend for CPGs companies that utilize rigid packaging?

Sterling Anthony, CPP
Sterling Anthony, CPP

Throughout the summer of 2024, a video advertisement has been airing regularly on national networks, cable channels, and the internet. The target audience is consumers of products that use plastics, including packaging. In fact, throughout its 30-second duration, there is not a time when packaging is not shown. By extension, CPG companies have a vested interest in the ad’s message and its effectiveness.

At its start, the ad shows various types of crumpled post-consumer packages, aligned and depicted in grayscale. A pointing index finger pushes the first package, toppling it and triggering a domino effect. The toppled packages don’t remain down, however. They spring up, transformed, vibrantly colored and perfectly shaped.  The domino effect travels along, making an arrowed circle.  Inside that circle is “MAKING SUSTAINABLE CHANGE” and wrapped along its bottom is “AMERICA’S PLASTIC MAKERSSM.

The ad’s message is delivered by this voiceover:

“Imagine a future when plastic is not wasted but instead remade over and over into the things that make our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner. To help us get there, America’s Plastic Makers are investing billions of dollars to create innovative products and new recycling technologies for sustainable change, cause when you push for smarter solutions, big things can happen.”

The ad’s sponsor is the American Chemical Council (ACC), a trade group. Its Plastics Division’s membership is a who’s-who list of industry giants. Since plastics see a wide diversity of uses, the ad’s focus on packaging is not by accident. Of those uses, packaging is the one that is ever-present in consumers’ lives, comprising a more-than-modest percent of household solid waste. 

Plastic packaging has had its sustainability bona fides challenged more than has any other packaging material. The long-standing list goes as follows: (petroleum-based) plastics are derived from a non-renewal resource, they can last for centuries even in landfill, and they pollute oceans and waterways. The challenges continue to grow, including the allegation that our bodies have been invaded by various chemicals derived from plastic packaging. Critics have lumped challenges and allegations to portray plastics as an existential threat.

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