Love Island was on everyone’s lips this summer, with an average of 2.5 million viewers throughout the series. Viewing figures were up 73% from last year with more than a quarter of the audience aged between 16 and 24. For this series, and the previous, Superdrug has been the official show sponsor. The previous series, which was the shows big relaunch, it was Match.com who were named as the official sponsor.

Both brands clearly have a mutual interest in sponsoring the show, with Match.com being one of the UK’s top dating sites and Love Island, being a prime-time dating show. Whereas Superdrug took the opportunity to promote its summer product range, with Superdrug’s sun lotion featuring regularly in shots, with an obvious nod to the luxurious Spanish villa the show was shot in.

The show has also presented a massive opportunity for brands that were not officially involved in the show. Stores such as Tesco started selling “Muggy Mike” mugs, relating to the nickname of one of the contestants, and Primark even started selling t-shirts sporting catchphrases from the show, with many stores selling out of the merchandise, with fans desperate to get their hands on them!

So why are we talking about this? Well, last month we were very excited to attend the Boohoo Men launch in London, which unveiled the Love Island winner Kem Cetinay, as the new face of the brand. He was kitted out in a black t-shirt with the brand’s logo on and photographed throughout the night by paps and event attendees. These images were quickly distributed on social media, which of course was great brand exposure for Boohoo!

So it got us thinking, what other deals have the contestants snapped up for themselves and how well do they fit together. Is it a sponsorship match made in heaven or a disaster waiting to happen?

So let’s start with Amber Davies, joint winner of the show (and Kem’s girlfriend). She has snapped up a deal with the lingerie store Boux Avenue and is featured on their website and adverts promoting the brand. Amber is a 20 something young woman who spent her summer in swimwear in the Love Island villa, so working with Boux Avenue is an ideal fit, as young women will undoubtedly look up to Amber and will flock towards the brand.

Our opinion? This is a match made in sponsorship heaven as Amber represents the brand’s customers.

Second, following in the footsteps of reality stars Charlotte Crosby, Binky and Billie Faires, third place contestant Olivia Attwood has launched her own clothing range with online retailer ‘In The Style’. The ‘Olivia Loves’ range features clothes, shoes, and accessories and Olivia cleverly uses pictures of herself in these clothes on her social media accounts, to her fan base of over a million. 

Our opinion? This is another match made in sponsorship heaven as Olivia fits the reality star persona and will be a good fit for the In The Style brand.

Other Love Island ladies have also snapped up clothing sponsorship deals, with Gabby Allen working with Quiz, Montana Brown with Pretty Little Things and Georgia Harrison with Lasula. Georgia shared an image of herself in a red polka dot dress from her Lasula collection which immediately caused the dress to sell out in all colours.

On the Lasula website, they make use of one of the most spoken phrases of the summer thanks to Love Island – ‘my type on paper’. “Totally our type on paper, our exclusive collection with Love Island’s Georgia features only the hottest style right now.” We think this is the perfect combination of brand promotion!

However, on the other end of the scale is contestant Alex Beattie who announced meet and greets at high street chain Poundland. Alex was criticised on social media for his appearances at the store but he was quick to speak out and defend his decision. Fellow contestants and couple Jessica Shears and Dom Lever have also faced a social media backlash over their promotion of products from toothpaste to watches, hair products to weight loss shakes, and clothing ranges to mattresses.

Our opinion? Well, this seems to be a random connection to us and we are not quite sure where the idea came from – we’ll be watching eagerly to see how these deals pan out.

In conclusion, it’s important that brands don’t jump off the success of something like Love Island for the sake of it. They need to ensure they keep to their target audience otherwise the partnership can look forced, be ineffective and could even damage a brand’s reputation, by alienating their existing audience.

It can also be risky to link your brand to a highly-disliked contestant due to social media backlash, and it’s worth checking out what said sponsorships contestants or shows already have in place to make sure you are not joining a long line or clashing with a competitor.

To find out how sponsorships could help you, get in touch with us at hello@wearecho.co.uk or for all the latest news on Twitterand LinkedIn.