• PLEXIGLAS® molding compounds shape the design of many automotive elements
• Black & Bright campaign connects on emotional level to show advantages and properties of PLEXIGLAS®
• Winner in the category “Integrated Campaign and Advertising

Deep black, high-gloss pillar panels, powerful red rear lights, bright headlights – all made possible by the special properties of one of the world’s best-known plastic brands: PLEXIGLAS®.

The manifold options provided by PLEXIGLAS® molding compounds in automotive construction have been highlighted in an international campaign which began in 2017. The campaign has made Molding Compounds a winner in the “Integrated Campaign and Advertising” category of the German Design Award.

The German Design Awards are the international premier prize awarded by the German Design Council. Its goal: to discover, present, and honour unique trends in design. Every year, high-calibre entries in the fields of product and communication design are honoured, each of which blazes new trails in the international design landscape. “The goal of our campaign is to increase our visibility even further in the market and to raise our profile among decision makers in the automotive industry,” explains Siamak Djafarian, head of Molding Compounds in Evonik’s Performance Materials Segment. “Our appeal connects on an emotional level and we are delighted that this approach has been so well received – not only by the jury of the German Design Award, but also by the automotive industry itself.”

Emotions to the fore

In the Black & Bright campaign, the technical details take a backseat role, and campaign managers instead opted to convey the special features of PLEXIGLAS® on an emotional level. The ad motifs highlight the advantages of PLEXIGLAS® in a humorous manner. One of the five motifs for automotive applications shows an elegantly dressed woman applying her lipstick using her reflection. The trick: Her mirror is a raised motor hood which looks like a black grand piano. “Our molding compounds are used as injection-molded automotive body parts. They are jet black and high gloss – just like a piano finish,” says Djafarian. The motifs are published in leading European trade journals serving the plastics and automotive industries and these are supplemented by specialist articles and case studies in various other publications.

“With its many and varied properties, our PLEXIGLAS® brand molding compounds stand for experience, performance, reliability, inspiration and emotion, and they provide impulses for ideas and creativity in automotive construction. In the future too, they will continue to drive innovation. Our new product variants enable and inspire totally new design ideas,” says Djafarian.