Love Myself (campaign)

Love Myself (stylised as LOVE MYSELF) is an anti-violence campaign launched on November 1, 2017 by South Korean boy band BTS in partnership with the Korean and Japanese Committee for UNICEF. The campaign idea was introduced by the group as a sponsorship to #ENDviolence, a global UNICEF campaign aimed at the protection of young people so they can live without the fear of violence, and promotes the hashtag – #BTSLoveMyself, which asks fans and supporters to post self-loving photos with the hashtag to different social media platforms. Initially a two-year endeavour, BTS renewed the campaign for a third year in 2021.
Love Myself made BTS the first artist in South Korea to raise funds as part of a social fund for global campaigns.
Background.
BTS's discography focuses heavily on themes such as mental health issues, suicide, nihilism, the K-pop idol system, and female empowerment. In September 2017, their fifth extended play, "," which featured themes of love, loss, friendship, and death, was released. As with past EPs and albums, BTS continued to promote social messages in the new songs.
BTS started working on the campaign in early 2017, together with their label Big Hit Entertainment, and hoped to help with their social influence in action. In November, BTS and the Korean Committee for UNICEF announced their partnership, supporting both their Love Myself campaign and UNICEF's #ENDviolence campaign. Since then, BTS began promoting the campaign and raising funds to support it. Official merchandise for the campaign was released and made available for purchase through BTS' online store.
In January 2018, BTS introduced donation platforms in collaboration with KakaoTalk as well as official stickers for the campaign. Five months later, in June, a partnership with the Japan Committee for UNICEF was announced through a partnership agreement ceremony held in Tokyo. BTS later attended the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 24, for the launch ceremony of UNICEF's global partnership, Generation Unlimited, a program “dedicated to increasing opportunities and investments for children and young people aged 10 to 24.” RM spoke on behalf of the group and delivered a speech about the Love Myself campaign.
In March 2021, BTS and Big Hit Entertainment released a joint video statement with Unicef and Unicef Korea, announcing their renewed support of the campaign for two more years. The announcement also revealed that Love Myself had been "elevated to a multinational MCA partnership", marking the first time that a Korea-based partnership had been expanded to a "global trilateral partnership with Unicef headquarters". The band pledged an additional US$500,000 per year to Unicef Korea. BTS also became sponsors of the global #ENDViolence campaign. They will donate a portion of income from their campaign merchandise and the "Love Yourself" album series sales to it, and a further $1 million to Unicef Korea by 2022.
Donations.
The campaign is funded in the following ways:
Proceeds are used to support young victims of school violence, domestic violence, and sexual assault around the world, as well as to provide education programs for local communities in aid of violence prevention.
Accomplishments.
As of January 17, 2018, global accumulated funds received for the campaign totaled around ₩106 million. Overall, around ₩606 million was raised. In November 2018 it was announced that over ₩1.6 billion ($1.4 million) had been raised by the organization. By December 2020, the #BTSLoveMyself hashtag had been used across social media over 14 million times, and the campaign's global funds totaled ₩3.2 billion ($2.8 million).As of March 2021, the campaign has raised ₩3.3 billion ($2.98 million) globally.
Awards.
The Love Myself campaign won a UNICEF Inspire Award in the 'Integrated Campaigns and Events' category at the 2020 UNICEF Inspire Awards. Held annually by UNICEF Headquarters, the ceremony honours the "most innovative and inspiring" global UNICEF campaigns of the year across 18 categories. The 'Integrated Campaigns and Events' category awards campaigns that have generated the biggest influence and inspiration in areas including promoting children's rights, fundraising, and public relations. For the 2020 edition, 100 campaigns across 50 countries were considered, with winners selected through a combination of online votes by UNICEF employees worldwide and the evaluation of a judges' panel.