`We love Chlorine,' says CIA
15 Jan 2000
In an attempt to deflect current criticism of the use of chlorine, the UK Chemical Industries Association is to mount an unprecedented advertising campaign to persuade the public how indispensable the element is to everyday life. Posters are to appear in London's underground system, highlighting chlorine's use in everyday, `non-threatening' applications which, the CIA believes, are not generally appreciated.
Chlorine has been coming under increasingly savage attack from environmental groups, most notably Greenpeace. The CIA has decided that the only way to counter such criticism is to head into the public arena itself. Two posters to be mounted in a total of 150 sites in Tube stations will highlight chlorine in unambiguous terms. One shows a blood bag emptying into a drip tube, with copy pointing out that blood bags must be made from non-biodegradable materials, and so are made of PVC. The punchline reads `no chlorine; no blood bags; no life.' The other (shown here) highlights chlorine's use in the polycarbonates which form compact discs, with the punchline `no chlorine; no CDs; no music (occasionally not a bad idea)'.
The CIA claims that this campaign - described as a £50,000 pilot - will reach 2.37 million of the so-called ABC1 advertising classes, deemed to be the `opinion-formers'. Of course, it will also reach many more millions of people in the `lower' classes, not to mention untold bemused tourists.
