Poppy and Remembrance

In November last year, I started to notice that a lot of people wore a little red flower on their left lapels. At first, I thought those people all went to an event that used this red flower as a logo. Then I saw more and more people wear it, which finally lead me to ask one of my friends what that was. Having only been in Canada for 2 years, I didn’t know that this was resulted from a huge annual campaign led by the Royal Canadian Legion.

Every year, millions of people wear the poppy distributed by the Royal Canadian Legion in the weeks running up to Remembrance Day. The significant value that the poppy brings to the legion does not only come from being an appreciation to the donor, but spreading the word of commemorating the fallen soldiers and making a donation to the organization. The same strategy is used by many websites: By having visitors click the “like” button on their webpages, the message that the webpages are valuable to the visitor is send to all his or her friends on Facebook. Many people refuse to consciously advertise for a product, so letting customers, or in this case donors, advertising for their products or services without them even knowing it is another level of marketing.