3M is looking within to get the word out about how it helped protect frontline workers from COVID-19.
The multinational conglomerate, which makes everything from medical devices to automotive products to Post-it notes, is out with a brand campaign from newly appointed agency McCann New York that turns the mirror inward on its employees to tell its story.
The campaign, “Improving Lives,” kicks off with a spot featuring 3M business development manager Chris DeColli, who volunteered to be the company’s point person coordinating with the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to deliver 3M personal protective equipment (PPE) and respirators to frontline workers.
In the spot, DeColli talks about his daughter Erica, a recently graduated nurse at a Baltimore hospital who found herself on the frontline of the pandemic as the first challenge of her career. DeColli speaks as images of young nurses and other frontline medical workers don 3M PPE to fight the virus head-on.
“You can’t treat patients from six feet away,” DeColli says in the voiceover. “As her dad, I had to know she was protected.”
The next spot in the campaign, called “A Father’s Commitment,” will share Erica’s point of view on her dad’s work at 3M and what it meant to her as a nurse on the frontline.
As a leading global manufacturer of N95 respirators, 3M has been a major supplier of PPE globally throughout the pandemic. In January 2020, the company doubled production of N95 respirators at its factories within two months. By the end of the year, 3M had manufactured two billion respirators globally, more than triple the number produced in 2019.
3M is still expanding N95 respirator production, manufacturing more than 95 million in the U.S. alone each month, up from 22 million monthly in 2019. The company grew its plant in Aberdeen, South Dakota by 120,000 square feet to support production, adding more than 100 jobs.
The company also produces hand sanitizer and disinfectants and is working with governments and the private sector in more than 70 countries to protect citizens and essential workers against COVID-19. It also worked hard to fight fraud and price gouging around its PPE products.