Ford’s #FinishStrong campaign is making the highest gear, as the company will use the Super Bowl to encourage people to hide and stay strong during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
As part of this effort, the company will be hosting local Super Bowl ads in the coronavirus hotspots in Florida, Texas and Southern California. The carmaker will also run ads in Michigan and Missouri, where they ‘have a high concentration of employees who cannot work from home’.
Two different ads will be displayed, but it will be known because the 30 seconds spot is the same #FinishStrong ad that was released last year. This will be a new 60-second ad that is largely identical but contains additional footage of events we missed due to the pandemic. This includes weddings, concerts, graduation ceremonies and of course football matches.
Also read: Ford wants America to finish strong, promotes face masks instead of cars
In other news, Ford has introduced N95 respirators that are clear. With the masks that are cheap and reusable, other people can see your face.
In addition to the obvious social benefits, people with hearing impairments can read lips through the masks. This is virtually impossible with current masks, which block a person’s mouth from the eye.
Ford has received patent pending approval for the masks and testing of their effectiveness continues. However, if all goes according to plan, the transparent respirators will be available this spring.
Ford has also developed fan sets for air filtration cabinets, designed to complement the existing filter system of a room to further reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
The kits are fairly basic, as they consist of an “easy-to-assemble-molded cardboard base, a 20-inch box fan and a 20x20x4 air filter with a standard minimum reporting value of 13”. The fan sits on top of the filter and bottom and draws in unfiltered air from above. It then draws clean air from below.
The kits are designed for use in enclosed spaces such as classrooms, and modeling has shown that it “reduces the chance of inhaling contaminated aerosols.” The efficiency depends on the size of the room, but Ford notes that an average classroom – 89.2 square meters (960 square feet) – with two portable air purifiers can triple the air changes per hour compared to what a building HVAC system alone. would clean, and refresh the air 4.5 times an hour. ”
Ford plans to donate up to 20,000 air filtration kits, and the automaker also plans to donate 20 million extra masks to deliver a total of up to 120 million.