In 1967, before his use of the smiley face, Franklin Loufrani was already active in the French poster industry. Contemporary reports press described him as a leading figure in the Paris poster boom, noting that he ran a sales promotion firm and was seen as a "pillar of the poster industry". Loufrani was "beaten by another firm" to copyright the word
poster in France, but he stated he was determined not to be "caught napping again". To that end, he copyrighted the word
psychedelic in France and began working with publisher Hachette on what he described as a "cosmic comic strip", predicting that merchandising around the theme would rival Olympic campaigns. While these ventures attracted publicity, they foreshadowed his later focus on trademarks and merchandising. He registered his version of the smiley symbol at the
French trademark office a few months prior to the campaign launch, making him the first person to register the symbol for commercial use. That same year, he left his position as a journalist and soon began The Smiley Company licensing operation. The
smiley began as a freebie sticker, rather than the commercial enterprise it is today. With economic opportunities lacking, Loufrani began handing out stickers to university students in an attempt to raise the profile of the
smiley. French
university students adopted the stickers, which appeared on backpacks, notebooks, and in bars. The stickers were used in various public and private settings as a means of conveying optimism. The trend soon spread beyond university communities, with the wider French public displaying the stickers in urban areas on lampposts, storefronts, and car bumpers. The rise of the
smiley's use in France had made it iconic by the mid-1970s. By 1975, Loufrani had produced and distributed over 10 million stickers. In the process he had a small group of people to assist him with the effort of distribution and also formal commercial channels with institutions and events so the stickers could be handed out. As corporations placed greater emphasis on creative
advertising in Europe, the popularity of licensing grew. While
smiley had found success in social circles, early commercial deals were mainly part of one-off campaigns. In 1975, Loufrani had his first big commercial break. Due to legal restrictions,
M&M's were unable to launch their famous product in certain European countries. The solution to this was to launch a forerunner to
M&M's in Europe, which were known as Bonitos. They had attempted to break the European market with Bonitos since the 1960s, originally starting in
The Netherlands. In 1975, they launched the Bonitos in
France, and since they could not use the iconic "M&M" print on its chocolate discs, they sought a replacement. Bonitos agreed a deal with Loufrani to print a
smiley on the front of the chocolate discs in
France and elsewhere in
Europe. The first major commercial deal continued into working with other American brands, including
Levi's who were the first fashion brand to use a smiley on its jeans in the 1970s. many of them used terms such as
"happy face" and
"smiling face." Loufrani was not the first documented person to use the term
"smiley." His images, registered with the United States Copyright Office in 1997, were first published as
GIF files on the internet in 1998, making them the first graphical emoticons used in technology. He launched the SmileyWorld brand shortly thereafter. In the early 2000s, the company licensed the rights to their emoticons to telecom companies, including
Nokia,
Motorola,
Samsung, amongst others. Nicolas Loufrani compiled his graphical emoticons, along with other existing images used for communication, into an online dictionary which was divided into categories, and by 2002, the dictionary included over 3,000 images. In 1997, The Smiley Company filed a
trademark application with the
United States Patent and Trademark Office. In 2001,
Walmart opposed the registration, citing potential confusion between their design and Loufrani's. Nine years later, the USPTO initially sided with
Walmart, before another federal court case was brought forward by Smiley in 2009. In 2011, the companies settled out of court. In 2005, the company announced the creation of the Smiley World Association, later renamed Smiley Fund and now Smiley Movement, as a charitable arm of the company, to which it donates 10 percent of its profits. In 2017, the company was responsible for 210 million products, that were sold under partnership and licensing agreements. License Global magazine listed the company as one of the most influential brands of the 2010s in its December 2020 summary of the brands of the decade list. In 2023, The Smiley Company hired a firm that specialized in anti-piracy, and filed a
SAD lawsuit in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida against over 700
Etsy sellers for using the word "smiley." In addition to 11 other SAD lawsuits against sellers on other online platforms. The Smiley Company had registered the trademark for the term in the United States in 2002. Etsy has faced repeated criticism for its lack of action on copyright infringement, with notable lawsuits from
Taylor Swift,
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the
BBC. The Smiley Company stated in
VICE magazine that the issue had been ongoing for over three years and that they would continue discussions directly with Etsy, dropping the lawsuit in the process. ==Fashion==