The Smiley Company has teamed up with Comic Relief to create a special ‘Happy Now’; Take That tour t-shirt to raise money for Comic Relief.
Nicolas Loufrani (CEO of The Smiley Company) said: "We’re really proud to have donated the use of our image to the ‘Happy Now’ Take That t-shirts because all the profits from the sale of this t-shirt will go straight to Comic Relief where they can spend it helping the people that need it most." The t-shirt will be sold during the Take That summer tour. The ‘Smiley’ company is home to one of the most recognisable symbols in the world. The original Smiley brand was born on January 1st 1972 with the ‘take time to smile’ promotion in French newspaper ‘France Soir’. The Smiley logo was used to highlight all good news so people could choose to read positive and uplifting articles. 40 years on the logo is now the symbol for a globally recognized brand and has enjoyed worldwide success with extensive licensing partnerships.
In 1997, Nicolas Loufrani launched the brand ‘SmileyWorld’ by creating variations of the original Smiley developing expressive characters and promoting the universal language of the ‘emoticon’. Today the company has thousands of different icons and characters.
10% of all royalties will go to charity through the Smiley World Association, which was formed in 2005 to help people in need by setting up health and educational infrastructures in third world countries.
