Who: The Royal Canadian Legion, with Wunderman Thompson.
What: “The Immortal Poppy,” an NFT and blockchain-based memorial marking the 100th anniversary of the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance Day.
When & Where: The campaign launched Oct. 27 and includes the website ImmortalPoppy.com, while the poppy NFTs are posted for sale at the online marketplace OpenSea.
Why: One of the core objectives for the Legion is to ensure that those who gave their lives for Canada are never forgotten. “The Immortal Poppy” is a relatively new—and very trendy—tech-based solution to that challenge, through the creation of permanent memorials for the fallen. NFTs are created on the blockchain, which means they become permanent and unalterable digital files.
This is the third year in a row that Wunderman Thompson has used modern technology to help the Legion in its mission to remember the past: Last year it was tap-to-pay poppy donation boxes, and in 2019 it was an integration with the popular videogame Fortnite.
How: Wunderman Thompson created 10 minute-long digital video tributes to 10 fallen soldiers. Actual poppies taken from Flanders Fields were 3D scanned to create the videos. The names of all 118,000 fallen Canadian soldiers going back to the War of 1812 are contained on the poppy petals, and their names also appear on a digital memorial wall—a “virtual cenotaph”—which can be viewed at ImmortalPoppy.com.
Each of the videos were converted into 10 NFTs (100 in all), which are being sold for the symbolically fitting price of 0.1111 ethereum—about $620 Canadian at the time of writing (see one of the tribute NFTs under the explainer video below).
All proceeds from the sale of each NFT goes to the Legion’s Poppy Trust Fund, as will 10% of each subsequent sale, creating what Wunderman Thompson calls a “perpetual donation mechanism” for the fund.
And we quote: “We are thrilled to add such a special feature to this year’s National Poppy Campaign. It’s a touching tribute to our fallen, an innovative way to remember them forever, and a means of supporting our Veterans.” — Bruce Julian, Dominion President, Royal Canadian Legion
Immortal Poppy NFT 10 – Thomas Welch from The Royal Canadian Legion on Vimeo.
