Part of the fun of watching football is car commercials.
But this year Ford has set aside some of its F-150 truck ads to encourage us to remain diligent in continuing to fight COVID-19.
At first, this might seem odd coming from an auto company, but it’s not. Ford was one of the first companies to begin making masks at its plants to help us battle this horrific disease. Back in April, the company, in partnership with the UAW, started manufacturing masks. And by the end of December, the company had produced 55 million masks. By the middle of 2021, Ford expects to have donated 100 million masks.
Other PPE the company has manufactured includes:
- 20 million face shields
- 50,000 patient ventilators
- More than 32,000 powered air-purifying respirators in collaboration with 3M
- 1.4 million washable isolation gowns
So, it’s no surprise that the company is correctly reading the mood of the country and is stepping up to encourage us to #FinishStrong.
“While many are weary from the challenges 2020 has thrown at us, now is the time for us to pull together, protect each other and finish strong until COVID-19 vaccines arrive more broadly. Lives are on the line,” said Kumar Galhotra, president, Americas & International Markets Group, Ford in a statement released on Dec. 31 when the company announced its #FinishStrong campaign.
In an article on Cheddar, Jim Baumbach, vice president, enterprise product line management at Ford said that it was the data that helped prompt the company to create this campaign.
"We really were inspired by some of the data we were seeing coming out of the University of Washington, where if we just followed some of these safe COVID protocols and everybody did their part, we're not helpless. We can save more than 50,000 incremental lives," Baumbach told Cheddar.
As someone who loves watching those trucks cross over fields and streams, I am even more moved by watching a company implore us to stay safe and keep strong.
