Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this summer, there is a very good chance you’ll have heard of the TV show that split the opinion of a nation – Love Island.
Love it or loathe it, the ‘Islanders’ drew in some seriously big numbers, with 3.6 million people tuning in to see the final episode.
Now while certain cast members may not have known what Brexit was, the show itself believe it or not has had an impact on the economy – with some industries seeing some very lucrative results.
Let’s take a look at who was feeling the love and how;
A.S Watson Group
Sales of cosmetics rose by 16%
Owners of Superdrug, the sponsor of Love Island. A.S Watson Group own a plethora of companies, including Superdrug and the Perfume Shop. Back in 2014, they floated on the London Stock Exchange for a short time, but are now a private company. However it’s still important to see how their decision to place Superdrug as the show sponsor affected business.
Let’s look at the results following last year’s series. Sales of cosmetics rose by 16%, online sales grew by 30% and demand was hire enough to warrant the opening of 22 new stores across the UK. (Retail Gazette, 2018). When you consider that the High Street has somewhat struggled in recent years – this really is quite something.
This series, the cosmetic dynamo chose to advertise their new service ‘Superdrug Mobile’ on the Love Island pre-rolls, however it wasn’t just the mobile network that benefitted. This quarter, sales were up by a further 2.5% in comparison to last year – which given the results above is a pretty damn good.
ITV
It hadn’t been a great time for ITV, with their share price suffering a lull for quite some time. However those who persevered were rewarded, with the share price up 2.5% following the most recent series of Love Island. (The Guardian, 2018).
Cosmetic Surgery companies
8% said that watching the show had made them consider breast augmentation surgery.
Rather than focusing on a particular company here, we’re going to look at an industry as a whole. The cast of Love Island were undeniably pretty picture perfect – and this clearly didn’t go unnoticed. Following the recent series, YouGov commissioned a survey – asking 18-34 year olds a number of questions related to body image. So what were the results?
11% stated that they would now be more likely to have lip fillers.
8% said that watching the show had made them consider breast augmentation surgery.
7% would now consider liposuction.
1 in 5 would now like to have teeth whitening.
Survey: The research commissioned by feminist campaign group Level Up came from a poll of 4,367 adults, of which 247 were female viewers of Love Island, aged 18 to 34. (The Telegraph, 2018)
Now ethically, this is clearly not a great looking set of results. (The NHS have in fact called for ads related to surgery to be banned during productions such as this). However, it is important to look at how TV shows and trends within the media really can impact our thoughts, our behaviour and in turn – business.
So there we have it – it wasn’t just Dani and Jack laughing all the way to the bank. There are always shows and trends ongoing – next time grab your Dabbl app and see how those trends impact the various companies that are linked. Remember, it isn’t always blindingly obvious who that may be. Delve a bit deeper and think outside the box.
