The Smiley Company to Celebrate 30 Years of Smileys in 2027

The Smiley Company and Anniversaries

For over 50 years, The Smiley Company has been spreading positivity, creating emotional connections, and shaping culture. What started with a single Smiley icon has grown into a world-class roster of brands that champions emotion, creativity, storytelling, and innovation. 

In 2022, Smiley celebrated its 50th anniversary with a global campaign that reached billions of people around the world through over 60 brand collaborations, street art activations, pop-up shops and takeovers. With thanks to the dedicated Smiley Team which has developed a unique expertise, the campaign increased brand awareness by 15%, brand love by 32%, and resulted in over $521M in retail sales. 

For 2027 and Smileys 30th anniversary, we want to go bigger and better, combining digital and physical activations that celebrate the importance of the brand and the phenomenon that it started. 

History of Smileys

In 1997, Nicolas Loufrani expanded his father’s legacy by adapting the iconic Smiley, creating different categories of Smileys. This revolutionized global communication through emoticons, allowing people to express themselves digitally and physically like never before. 

Since then, Smileys has grown to include thousands of icons across more than 20 categories, such as emotions, animals, flags, nations, occupations, sports and more. Originally sold under the brand SmileyWorld, it has now been joined by Mini Smiley, a preschool brand, and S.W.Smiley, with an edgier art direction for young adults, all using different styles of Smileys.

30 Years of Smileys

In 2027, Smileys will be celebrating their 30th anniversary, inviting creators, gamers, innovators, and style leaders to join The Smiley Company to “Express Your World”. This is an opportunity to unite, inspire and bring joy to the world through emotional expression and creativity both digitally and physically. The anniversary will blend digital activations with physical opportunities allowing everyone to get involved and truly express themselves. 

Express Your World

To celebrate the anniversary, Smileys are going to combine their past with the future of the brand and ensure that it resonates with all key audiences. They will do this by: 

• Access to the extensive archive of tens of thousands of icons, characters, and style guide graphics, offering endless collectible opportunities and segmentation by age, gender, market tier, and lifestyle.
  
• Major IP collaborations with partners joining the event to create unique content across animation, music, and video games.
  
• Creating Retail campaigns with key mass and high street chains and Pop up shops in major local department store chains
  
• A major celebration of internet culture, showcasing the brands role as the first and digital IP phenomenon, and powered by upcoming digital partnerships with global players.
• 100s of existing partners, suppliers, retailers, brands and promotion agencies, launching consumer products and participating in the marketing campaigns. 
• Global advertising and PR agencies implementing and amplifying a global communications campaign across the USA, Canada, France, Italy, UK, GAS, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, GCC, India, China, Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. 

The countdown to 2027 has begun. Ready to help shape the future of emotional expression and create something extraordinary with The Smiley Company? 

Get in touch with the Smiley Team today and discover how you can get involved. 

As featured by LicenseGlobal.com. Read their full coverage of the The Smiley Company to Celebrate 30 Years of Smileys in 2027

About The Smiley® Company:

The Smiley Company is a global leader in licensing, renowned for its iconic Smiley brand that spreads positivity and happiness across various products and collaborations. With a commitment to innovation and excellence, The Smiley Company continues to inspire joy in the hearts of consumers worldwide through its diverse range of licensed offerings.

Smiley has been spreading joy and optimism to generations since French journalist Franklin Loufrani created the trademarked brand in 1972. 

Originally a gesture to urge readers of the newspaper France-Soir to ‘Take the Time to Smile’, soon this ubiquitous symbol of happiness became the most recognised and important icon in graphic design.

In 1996 Nicolas Loufrani, son of Franklin, took over the helm, steering Smiley into the digital revolution. Creating a whole new way of communicating, he added a variety of facial expressions to the original Smiley – his emoticons are now sent around the world infinitely.

Continuing to influence modern culture, Smiley is one of the world’s top global licensing enterprises with 6 brands, collaborating on high-profile activities spanning fashion, art, homeware, food and beverage. Major partnerships have included Loewe, Moschino, Raf Simons, Eastpak and LA-based Market, who produce the Market Smiley Baseball – a cultural icon.

Maintaining Smiley’s friendly mantra, Loufrani created Smiley Movement in 2017. The non-profit community works across multimedia platforms aiming to inspire positive change in society addressing urgent societal and environmental problems.

Key Data:

• 50+ years history 
• Top 60 Global Licensor
• $410 million in retail sales 
• Over 66 million units sold across 155 countries
• 2024 Social media reach of 605m
• Trademarked in over 100 countries

Retail Partners:

• Global Retail Chains: H&M, Zara, Bershka, Pull & Bear, GAP
• Department Stores: Galeries Lafayette, Nordstrom, Macy’s, M&S, 
• Fashion Chains: Kiabi, Next, Primark, Urban Outfitters, OVS, Terranova, Gemo, C&A, Reserved, Lefties, Hot Topic, 
• Mass Retail: Target, Walmart, Asda, Tesco, Carrefour, Auchan, Lidl, Aldi

Licensees:

Over 531 across key categories; Fashion & Accessories. Home & Gifting. Hi Tech. Health & Beauty. Stationery & Publishing. Toys and Games. Food & FMCG. Jewellery & Watches