True Patriot Love and Wunderman Thompson Bring Soldiers’ Letters Home to Life Through “Remastered Memories”

True Patriot Love Foundation, in partnership with Wunderman Thompson is launching a ground-breaking campaign to educate Canadians about the importance of remembering those who served and those who continue to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. Using artificial intelligence (A.I.), Canadian Veterans’ letters from World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the War in Afghanistan are being turned into realistic imagery, showing a glimpse of what those on the frontlines experienced.

With the use of A.I. image generator MidJourney, “Remastered Memories,” brings to life scenes from the battlefield, hospitals, and life in the trenches described in serving members letters home to loved ones. The imagery creates a fuller picture and reality of service and sacrifice, giving Canadians a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to understand the realities of combat for a time in which a quarter of Canadians under the age of 45 don’t see the importance of Remembrance Week.

“For many Canadians, Remembrance Week is losing its impact and importance. Younger generations do not understand the impact of war on those who serve and on our country as a whole,” says Nick Booth, Chief Executive Officer, True Patriot Love. “There are over 461,000 Veterans in Canada. Many may be isolated or need our help; whether through mental or physical rehabilitation from injury; assistance with transitioning from military to civilian life or simply connecting them to a wider community which understands their experiences. True Patriot Love is committed to reconnecting Canadians back to their military and highlighting the impact of service, both historically from World War Two or Korea, and on the modern-day Veteran, who may have fought in Bosnia, Afghanistan or be engaged in ongoing conflicts such as Ukraine. This unique campaign creates powerful visual representations of real experiences, allowing us all to see what the world looked like through the eyes of someone who served.”

The Remastered Memories series will be on public display on out-of-home boards across Canada, as well as in the national newspaper and on the True Patriot Love website. As Canadians prepare to observe Remembrance Day on November 11th, this campaign created by Wunderman Thompson is designed to inspire Canadians into empathy and gratitude for the service and sacrifice of Veterans through the stunning visuals depicting personal experiences.

“Words can only tell part of the story,” says Ari Elkouby, Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson Canada. “Having the ability to use technology to capture and share memories more completely was the perfect way to honor each soldier’s legacy and ensure we remember Veterans who sacrificed their lives for their country and the world.”

Wunderman Thompson has been recognized for utilizing A.I. technology as a creativity tool in much of their recent work, including ‘Smallpox Simulator’ for Meridian, a data visualization tool designed to help governments around the world test and prepare for smallpox outbreaks, and the voice-activated A.I. tool ‘Speaking in Color’ for Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings, which won the inaugural B2B Cannes Grand Prix Lion. Last year’s campaign by Wunderman Thompson Canada was also integral in adding a new digital dimension to Remembrance Day with ‘The Immortal Poppy,’ 100 limited-edition NFT’s created to preserve the memory of the 118,000 fallen Canadian soldiers that utilized digital art to encrypt soldiers’ names into an enduring symbol.

The letters for Remastered Memories were sourced from the National War Museum in Ottawa and the National Archives. The team behind this effort hopes to create a traveling exhibit to tell more soldiers’ stories in the future, specific to anniversaries of upcoming wars such as the Korean War’s 70th anniversary. For more information on the upcoming campaign and to donate to True Patriot Love, visit RemasteredMemories.ca.

About Wunderman Thompson
At Wunderman Thompson we exist to inspire growth for ambitious brands. Part creative agency, part consultancy and part technology company, our experts provide end-to-end capabilities at a global scale to deliver inspiration across the entire brand and customer experience.

We are 20,000 strong in 90 markets around the world, where our people bring together creative storytelling, diverse perspectives, inclusive thinking, and highly specialized vertical capabilities, to drive growth for our clients. We offer deep expertise across the entire customer journey, including communications, commerce, consultancy, CRM, CX, data, production, and technology.

In 2020, Wunderman Thompson launched Inspire, a proprietary global platform that uncovers a never-before-identified connection between human inspiration and brand growth, making Wunderman Thompson the world’s foremost researcher into inspiration. Rooted in a rigorous, multidimensional research methodology, the platform identifies the qualities a brand must embody, the narratives it should weave, and the experiences it can design in order to spark people’s inspiration and culminates in an annual list of the Inspire Score Top 100 Most Inspiring Brands in the World.

Wunderman Thompson is a WPP agency (NYSE: WPP).

CREDITS:
Client Name: True Patriot Love Foundation
Brand: True Patriot Love Foundation
Campaign Title: “Remastered Memories”

Agency: Wunderman Thompson
Region/Office: Canada
Launch Date: November 1

Agency: Wunderman Thompson Canada
Global Chief Creative Officers: Bas Korsten, Daniel Bonner
Chief Creative Officer: Ari Elkouby
Associate Creative Directors: Kyle Carpenter, Jose Rivas
Design Director: Mike Butler
Illustrator: MidJourney
Executive Integrated Producer: Jennifer Cotton
Senior Integrated Producer: Andrej Kopac
Editor: Eric Thompson
Music Company & City: Pirate Toronto
Composer: Vanya Drakul
Managing Director: Scott Miskie
Account Director: Mike Davidson
Planner: Luke Johns

Clients:
Chief Executive Officer: Nick Booth
Senior Director, Brand Strategy and Communications: Sarah Barker
Senior Coordinator: Sara Elsadik

Media:
Senior Director, GroupM Canada: William Soraine
Trading Manager, GroupM Canada: Jose George