Take That & The Smiley Company ‘Happy Now’

The Smiley Company has teamed up with Comic Relief to create a special ‘Happy Now’ Take That Progress tour 2011 t-shirt to raise money for Comic Relief.

Comic Relief spends all the money raised by the public to give extremely poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged people in the UK and across the world’s poorest countries a helping hand to turn their lives around.

Nicolas Loufrani (CEO of The Smiley Company) says, “We’re really proud to have donated the use of our image to the ‘Happy Now’ Take That t-shirts because all the profits from the sale of this t-shirt will go straight to Comic Relief where they can spend it helping the people that need it most.“

The t-shirt will be sold during the Take That summer tour.

In the meantime, Take That released eight brand new songs as part of a double disc album entitled ‘Progressed’ on June 13th.

The new tracks are being released as a package alongside the band’s record-breaking album ‘Progress’ which will be on a separate disc of this two CD set.

The new single ‘Love, Love’, recorded for X-Men: First Class, will also feature on the album and the video for this can be seen here via Youtube:

‘Progressed’ will be released half way through Take That’s record breaking Progress Live Tour that will see them play to over 1.6 million people and will see them play eight nights at Wembley Stadium breaking Michael Jackson’s previous record for the Bad Tour in 1988.

Click on this link to buy the album directly from Amazon:

Take That began their Progress Live 2011 tour on May 27. The tour, one of the most highly anticipated music events of the summer, is the first time the band have toured as a five-piece since 1995. The spectacular live shows will celebrate their biggest hits from the last two decades and, will also see Robbie take to the stage to perform songs from his incredible chart-topping solo career.

Take That’s Progress Live 2011 tour became the biggest tour in UK and Irish history when a record breaking 1.34 million tickets were snapped up in less than 24 hours of going on sale. The band smashed their previous box office record set in 2008 with The Circus Live Tour, more than doubling their own record for sales in a single day. 850,000 tickets went on sale at 9am on October 29, 2010 and throughout the day the band added a further 11 dates to cope with demand.

Between them, Take That and Robbie Williams have sold over 80 million albums, had 14 number one albums, 18 number one singles, played to over 14.5 million people live, won 20 BRIT Awards, eight MTV awards and five Ivor Novello awards; and the list goes on. Their critically acclaimed 2010 album, Progress, has now sold in excess of two million copies.

The ‘Smiley’ company is home to one of the most recognisable symbols in the world. The original Smiley brand was born on January 1st 1972 with the ‘take time to smile’ promotion in French newspaper ‘France Soir’. The Smiley logo was used to highlight all good news so people could choose to read positive and uplifting articles.

40 years on the logo is now the symbol for a globally recognized brand and has enjoyed worldwide success with extensive licensing partnerships. 25 years later with the evolution of the internet global communication changed forever not surprisingly, Smiley was there from the beginning.

In 1997, Nicolas Loufrani launched a universe of self expression with the brand ‘SmileyWorld’ by creating variations of the original Smiley developing expressive characters and promoting the universal language of the ‘emoticon’. Today we have thousands of different icons and characters.

‘Smiley’ is more than an icon, brand and lifestyle; it’s a spirit, a philosophy. It is here to remind people of how powerful a smile is and how much a simple smile can change your life and the lives of others around you.

10% of all sales will go to charity through the Smiley World Association, which was formed in 2005 to help people in need by setting up health and educational infrastructures in third world countries.

Tags: Amazon, Bad Tour, Comic Relief, Happy Now, love, Michael Jackson, Progress, Progressed, Robbie Williams, Smiley World Association, SmileyWorld, Take That, The Circus Live Tour, The Smiley Company, tickets, video, Wembley Stadium, X-Men: First Class, YouTube, ‘France Soir’