Canadian DOOH Screens To Go (Almost) Black For Two Minutes Nov. 11 To Honor Veterans

This is a nice initiative – a push to have digital out of home screens go black for two minutes in Canada on November 11th, which is called Remembrance Day.

The Royal Canadian Legion’s initiative sees media operators and their brand advertisers to mark two minutes of silence from 11:00 – 11:02 a.m. – with screens black except for the numbers 11-11-11.

The 11s, if you are not a history buff, references the ending of fighting in the First World War on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918.

The numbers will overlay a stylized message of “Lest We Forget” along with a remembrance poppy. The poppy references the war poem In Flanders Fields, written by a Canadian physician after a losing a friend at Ypres. He’d seen poppies growing in battle-scarred fields.

The initiative is a way to honor the 120,000 Canadian Armed Forces members who have died in the line of duty. The poppy is also a central symbol for honoring veterans in the UK.