Ford Motor Co. has referred to as an audible on its New Yr’s Day school soccer advertising in a transfer to advertise mask-wearing. The automaker will dedicate a good portion of its media purchase throughout Jan. 1 bowl video games to a brand new advert referred to as “End Sturdy,” which promotes mask-wearing and different security measures, whereas foreshadowing higher days forward as vaccines distribution ramps up.
The spot is narrated by Ford spokesman Bryan Cranston and was created by filmmaker Peter Berg. It’ll air throughout the Citrus Bowl on ABC and the Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on ESPN, in addition to throughout Fox NFL video games on Jan. 3. Ford had initially supposed to make use of its airtime throughout the high-profile sporting occasions to plug autos, together with its top-selling F-150 pickup truck. However the automaker opted to make use of half of its buys for “End Sturdy.”
“We’re on this collectively and Ford’s aim because the pandemic began has been to attempt to assist save lives,” Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president for the Americas, stated in a statement on Thursday. “Whereas many are weary from the challenges 2020 has thrown at us, now could be the time for us to tug collectively, defend one another and end sturdy till COVID-19 vaccines arrive extra broadly. Lives are on the road.”
Within the assertion, the corporate cites info from the College of Washington’s Faculty of Drugs that means if extra People embraced COVID security protocols, together with sporting masks, that fifty,000 or extra lives might be saved between now and the tip of March.
“The COVID pandemic has examined us all in methods we couldn’t have imagined a 12 months in the past,” Berg stated within the assertion. “Individuals are weary, beat down, and it could be simple to let our guard down now. However we have now to maintain combating for one another; we’re nearly there. As we enter 2021, we needed to assist encourage People to return collectively and save lives till the vaccines arrive in numbers. We have to end sturdy. We acquired this.”
The advert consists of scenes of front-line employees and COVID victims, together with a survivor named John Williams, 68, from Kansas Metropolis, whom the corporate states stated “beat COVID-19 after 20 days on and off a ventilator.”
Ford has emerged as a company chief within the struggle in opposition to COVID. It has used its crops to make 20 million face shields, 50,000 ventilators and greater than 32,000 powered air-purifying respirators in collaboration with 3M, whereas donating greater than 55 million face masks to nonprofit organizations.
Berg earlier this 12 months filmed front-line employees, together with these affiliated with the UAW, making private protecting tools for a short documentary referred to as “On the Line.”