Nicolas Loufrani

Nicolas Loufrani ( born December 17, 1971 in Neuilly -sur -Seine, France ) is a French businessman. He is the CEO of the Smiley Company, which holds the rights to the trademark and copyright of the smiley face and name in over 100 countries.

Smiley

Nicolas founded the smiley licensing company in 1996 along with his father, the French journalist Franklin Loufrani in London. He thus withdrew all pre-existing rights, he maintained the trademark smiley.

Nicolas decided to register the name and began to use the logo along with the name by he created a goods brand ( labels, packaging, catalogs, etc. ). At the same time he opened international offices on five continents to manage the licensee on a more professional manner. He wanted the logo will be as successful as the " curvature " of Nike or the crocodile of Lacoste.

In addition, he created new designs to use the logo on different products. This was the starting point of many different variations on the original smiley logo.

In subsequent years, Nicolas went with famous designers a partnership one, including Ora- ïto, Jean -Charles de Castelbajac and the smiley face appeared in a variety of topics department stores around the world, including in the " colette Paris " or the " Bull's Blood Fashion Store Munich ".

In 2001, he was a litigation with the supermarket chain Wal- Mart in the United States, who believed themselves to be the owners of the rights of the original image brand. This conflict was not referring to the rights to the symbol, which was designed by Nicolas Loufrani, nor to the word mark.

All these efforts resulted in the smiley logo became known to a wider public and hundreds of licensing partners created a wide range of products, including perfumes, plush toys, office supplies, advertising campaigns, etc.

In 2005 founded Loufranis " The Smiley World Association " ( SWA), a charity organization. He decided to market ethical products by using organic cotton for clothing, sold products from fair trade or by leaving a portion of the company's turnover to the " Smiley World Association " flow.

" The Smiley Company " is now considered loud licencemag.com the 100 largest licensing company in the world with a turnover of more than 100 million.