Press Play to Give

Background

Back in 1979, ABBA donated parts of their royalties for the song Chiquitita to UNICEF. Up until today, the song has played in more than 30 million Swedish Krona – and the song has been UNICEF's most secret fundraising channel over the years. The mission, together with ABBA the Museum and UNICEF Sweden, was to make the initiative known by enabling the song to hit the charts once again, even though it was recorded 35 years ago.

Idea

Thanks to YouTube and Spotify, you can now give by just listening. The concept "Press Play to Give" was brought together, an initiative that urged people to listen to and spread Chiquitita. In order to reach even more listeners, ABBA the Museum invited more artists to make their interpretations of Chiquitita, in the museum's Polar Studio. First up was the Swedish artist Laleh. She joined Björn Ulvaeus to perform the new song in front of the UN General Assembly in New York on November 20, when the Convention on the Rights of the Child celebrated their 25th anniversary. The initiative was announced via a site, which also got editorial exposure, spread in social media and on operated fan pages. The site was visited by millions of ABBA fans from across the world, and shared to Facebook and Twitter thousands of times.

Results

All ABBA members: Frida Lyngstad Reuss, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus, as well as Universal Music Publishing and Polar Music endorsed the collaboration and donated all royalties for Chiquitita as artists, authors and record labels. In addition, the new artist Laleh donated the full royalties for her version of the song Chiquitita. It was decided that future revenues would go to projects supporting girls' rights. The initiative resulted in Chiquitita quickly climbing the Swedish chart DigiListan, and in only two days, Chiquitita became the most downloaded song on Swedish iTunes. The news of the initiative spread quickly, and until today the gross reach is more than 100 million people worldwide, through traditional and social media. UNICEF's most secretive fundraiser, the Chiquitita song, has finally received the attention it deserves. Now, even more girls worldwide will have their rights honoured, thanks to the Swedish pop band that gave up theirs.