Love Island is now over for another year and with record viewing figures, it has been the must watch programme of the summer. An average of 3.6 million people watched the live final which was aired last Monday night (with even more people downloading it from the ITV Hub). Half of the audience were within the 16-34 age range.
So what does this mean for fashion brands? In the first instance, it has been reported that Missguided (which provided clothing for the contestants) has seen a sales boom and the sale of men’s jewellery has risen as worn by the male contestants.
Popular programmes such as Love Island can create a surge in popularity and profits for fashion brands as, given the target age range, these viewers will want to go out and purchase the clothing worn by the contestants.
ITV Studios Limited and Motion Content Group Limited have filed for a number of trade marks following on from the success of the show such as:
- DR LOVE
- IT’S NEVER TOO SOON TO SPOON
- KEEPING MY OPTIONS OPEN
- THE DO BITS SOCIETY.
Merchandise and clothing with these phrases on will no doubt be everywhere this summer and Primark is already selling the official Love Island merchandise.
However, the success of Love Island also serves a salutary lesson that applying for registration of a trade mark is not something which should be delayed. ITV/Motion may be on track for a bit of a fight over the trade mark for THE DO BITS SOCIETY (as could Primark which is selling the clothing). ITV/Motion applied to register their trade mark for THE DO BITS SOCIETY for clothing on 18 July 2018 but an individual Rhys Morgan had already filed for DO BITS SOCIETY for clothing on 26 June. As a result if Mr Morgan’s application proceeds to registration, he could take action against the use by Primark and any use by ITV/Motion on clothing. ITV/Motion have until 6 September to oppose Mr Morgan’s application in an attempt to prevent it from proceeding to registration.
Quick applications for registration of trade marks can reduce the risk that a third party could file first and prevent any merchandise deals or plans that a brand has.
The winners of the show Dani and Jack may even end up filing their own trade marks for their names given their popularity, but Dani should be warned that someone has already beaten her to a very similar mark – her dad DANNY DYER.
