Love Island UK boosted demand for Crocs by 1300% Series and reality shows are the next level of television product placement

Crocs have always been shoes capable of polarizing public opinion: there are those who would never wear them, and those who can't live without them. The contestants of Love Island UK, a reality show followed by over three million people in the UK, seem to love them and also wear them in some of the scenes of the series. Their latest appearance, at the feet of two of the contestants Chuggs Wallis and Faye Winter, created a global increase in searches for the shoe by 1300%. Specifically, according to the data provided by The Sole Supplier, searches for lilac-coloured Crocs have increased by 950% while those for the white colourway by 324%. 

Product placement in Love Island is perhaps one of the first fully functioning cases of a new marketing strategy for clothing brands – but which for now has mainly applied to fast fashion brands such as the aforementioned Missguided, I Saw It First and Boohoo. As for fashion brands, the real possibilities could lie in high-profile TV series, such as the new HBO reboots of Sex &The City and Gossip Girl, but also in Emily in Paris or Elite where, curiously, Lidl fruit juices coexist with Saint Laurent handbags, and in Halston, a strange case in which a TV series revives a brand that just before was almost completely ignored.