Cover Story - Smiley

Celebrating 50 years of Smiley!

Born early in 1972 to spread feel-good news, the Smiley brand is celebrating 50 years through a series of collaborations with some of the most exciting brands across fashion, lifestyle, home and beauty. Initially trademarked 50 years ago by French journalist Franklin Loufrani, Smiley first appeared in France Soir newspaper in a campaign with RTL, designed to highlight positive news. Franklin was, without doubt, a pioneer. He had previously been in charge of Babar at Hachette so was well versed in the opportunities that a brand could present. Using the tag line ‘Take the Time to Smile’ whilst the brand was unnamed at the beginning, Franklin quickly realised that licensing created a massive opportunity – one that became a mass

market phenomenon through the 1970s and 1980s. The Take the Time to Smile campaign spread out from France Soir to include De Telegraaf, Blick and Lavanguardia. By the 1980s, Smiley had become the iconic image of the up and coming electronic music scene and the face of defiant optimism for a generation finding refuge on the dance floors of the subversive underground. And by 1988 the second Summer of Love defined a major evolution of global youth culture. Smiley had grown from being a promotional tool to embracing the music and fashion of the day. By early 1993 however, Smiley was past its previous peak and in 1996, Franklin persuaded his son, Nicolas, to join the business.

As Nicolas explains, “My father had a really hard time persuading me. At the time, I was working for fashion designer Ozwald Boateng and I was used to the high-end fashion market. Smiley at the time simply didn’t fit that.” Nevertheless, despite his initial reservations, Nicolas joined Smiley. He gave the brand its name – Smiley – and relaunched it. Suddenly interest in Smiley began to grow again. Nicolas quickly realised the digital opportunities that Smiley presented and the first Smiley appeared on an Alcatel mobile in 1996. Nicolas created and copyrighted the world’s first graphical emoticons. Initially these emoticons were made of punctuation but, as they became more and more popular they were replaced with graphic tools and Gifs for email and messages. Smiley had suddenly become cool again and was linked to the future. Deals with major mobile companies followed. In 2001, the Smiley Dictionary launched on the internet, announcing ‘The Birth of a Universal Language.’ The Dictionary was published as a book for the first time in 2002 and in 2003 it became better known as SmileyWorld. Product was still very mass-market driven and Nicolas realised that, to achieve stability, he needed to relaunch Smiley as a fashion icon – a brand with heritage which was very much in keeping with the vintage trend of the day. Smiley became a lifestyle brand synonymous with happiness and cool, reach millions of people around the world. In fact, Smiley was seen by 1 billion people in 2012 as it featured in the London Olympics opening ceremony. The brand became hugely popular with celebrities and, as a result, it continued to enjoy record sales and growth. Based in London, Nicolas created a design studio which produced more than 25 different style guides and 15,000 products which are launched each and every year. And so to the present and the 50 year celebrations. Nicolas launched the anniversary program two years ago – just as the world went into lockdown. He commented, “Actually we signed 65 brand collaborations during the lockdowns.” Nicolas built a program where Smiley developed partnerships with major department stores around the world. Each of these created a Smiley corner including collector editions from the 65 collaborations. Today, Smiley is one of the most recognisable icons in graphic design. With a cultural influence ranging from Talking Heads to Nirvana, Acid House to DC Comics, Banksy to Murakami, Smiley has grown to become an international lifestyle brand with over 400 global partners, and continues to inspire leading creatives across the worlds of art, fashion, film, music, print and pop culture. Through partnerships with designers from luxury to sport & street, beauty, design and advertising; Smiley continues to embrace collaboration as an opportunity to spread this important message. That is why so many like-minded, creative, caring and innovative brands choose Smiley to develop products, promotions and marketing campaigns. Because the brand values are universal and by adapting this message to audiences with exclusive concepts, Smiley always remains fresh and relevant. Ambitious, authentic, and forward-thinking brand partners harness the power of the smile to lead the world toward a future we all want to be part of; a defiantly optimistic one. To mark this milestone anniversary, Smiley enlisted renowned graffiti artist André Saraiva to reimagine the iconic Smiley logo. Active in

the early Parisian graffiti movement, Andre became widely recognised for his cartoonish characters and his alter ego Mr. A, which quickly became his signature design and an iconic character in the fashion and art world appearing across six continents. When approaching the redesign of the logo, Saraiva wanted to capture the essence of boundless positivity at the core of the Smiley brand. Created as original works of art in his Paris studio, the final design and the positive message it seeks to communicate is particularly resonant following a period of unprecedented change. Merging both icons, Mr A and the Smiley face, Saraiva has created a truly unique design to celebrate the brand anniversary with his signature spray cans. In celebration of the anniversary, Sarah Andelman, co-founder of the legendary Parisian concept store colette has come onboard to curate over 50 halo partnerships across 12 product categories. This includes creative fashion, design, beauty and FMCG collaborations by world-famous brands including Raf Simons, Sandro, Karl Lagerfeld, Market, Reebok and Dsquared2. These brands have designed a unique iteration of their most iconic products using a style guide created from Andre Saraiva’s artworks and these will be displayed and sold as part of Smiley takeovers of some of the world’s most influential department stores and retail chains, including all Galeries Lafayette stores globally, Nordstrom Special Project stores in the US and Urban Outfitters in Europe. World Happiness Day in March is, clearly, an important milestone for Smiley and major cities will celebrate the brand. Nicolas is releasing video clips with Smiley at the end of March and has hired PRs in major countries to get the message out, as well as promoting Smiley Movement, the non-profit organisation designed to help create a happier, more equal and sustainable world. Smiley Movement is designed to help partners make ‘giving’ the norm through match making licensees and charities. The move-

ment adds purpose to Smiley partnerships, kick-starting meaningful engagement with consumers and building a social legacy. The movement has a highly engaged community of 200,000 change-makers on Twitter and over 48,000 business leaders on LinkedIn, making it a growing authority in the positive news media space. Sustainability is a key driver and through their Future Positive campaign, Smiley has a five year objective for sustainable brands. As Nicolas Loufrani explained, “The nature of licensing enables local producers to access global brands and produce them locally. We are the first brand extension company committed to support change-makers in the licensing industry, encouraging local sourcing to reduce carbon footprint. Ou4 360 degree Future Positive campaign will bring together the most future-thinking brands to curate a range of limited-edition sustainable lifestyle products, infused with brand experiences and charitable giving opportunities.” A book is also in the works entitled ’50 years of Good News’ which will launch in March around the world. Nicolas Lourani continues, “Since its inception, Smiley’s mission has been to spread good news and the founding mantra of ‘Take the Time to Smile’ feels more relevant than

ever in 2022. After the challenging last couple of years, what better way to navigate out of these times with this campaign that aims to reverse a global smile deficit, spread positivity and fill the world with smiles in 2022. This campaign has proved that Smiley’s unique, creative and positive symbolism continues to inspire some of the most influential artists, brands and tastemakers across the globe.”

For more information, please visit www.smiley.com