How to make brand partnerships soar: building Tinder and TikTok’s Double Date Island
Studio 55’s Will Scougal on making a social-first dating reality show
It feels sometimes as though every permutation of a dating reality show has been attempted on linear TV. Between the myriad offerings across public service broadcasters and streamers, audiences may, quite literally, have seen it all.
That’s why the next turn of the wheel within the genre isn’t targeting linear audiences at all: it’s going mobile-first.
Double Date Island, a partnership between dating app Tinder and social video platform TikTok, was announced at Cannes Lions last month, signalling “a defining moment for the entertainment and dating industries,” according to both companies.
The show, which is co-produced by ITV Studios’ Studio 55 and Cowshed Studios, stops short of being TikTok’s first original reality series (rather, it’s Tinder that’s presenting it on the platform), but TikTok confirmed to Indie Hustle that it’s the first partnership of its kind for the social video platform.
The show is based on a Tinder feature called Double Date, which allows a Tinder user and friend to match with other pairs and go on dates. The resulting series reflects how dating platforms are “moving beyond the app.” It also points to the innovation between brands and creative studios such as Studio 55.
Launched in February, Studio 55 is ITV Studios’ global brand and licensing partnerships studio. It was created to connect the ITVS content portfolio with brands, marketing agencies and creators for major licensing deals as well as digital-first formats built around fandoms. (Studio 55 will remain within ITVS after Sky’s £1.6 billion acquisition of ITV closes next year, subject to regulatory approval.)
The relationship with Tinder began with a podcast idea related to the BBC dating show I Kissed a Boy (produced by ITVS-owned Twofour) that became its own successful IP called It Started With a Kiss.
“It was them wanting to lean in to create a vodcast with us that engaged that high-intent audience and fandom, but was also very relevant to the LGBTQ+ community,” says Will Scougal, EVP of brand and commercial partnerships for ITVS.
From there, the companies built on their relationship with all roads eventually leading to Double Date Island. This week, Scougal sat down with The Indie Hustle to discuss the conception and objectives of the show; how brand licensing has evolved from water bottles on Love Island to a brand-partnered social-first dating series; and his evergreen advice for reaching audiences through brands.
Read on to learn:
How brand licensing has evolved from slapping logos on water bottles to engaging more meaningfully with audiences
How a straightforward soft drink license led to a cross-continental opportunity for Love Island
Why Double Date Island needs so many stakeholders and why it’s TikTok-first
Why ‘fans are as valuable as the shows themselves’
What do brands want?
Scougal joined ITVS in 2025 after stints as Snap’s global director of creative strategy and Twitter U.K.’s head of brand strategy. He was consulting for the superindie when the idea for Studio 55 emerged as a way to explore conversations with partners and creators, leverage ITVS IP and go out to brands. Scougal helped to launch Studio 55 in February during London TV Screenings.
“One of the things that all brands want over and above the revenue exchange with their customers is attention,” says Scougal. “Every brand needs the attention of people, so they can tell people where they’re different, where they’re unique, what their values are and what their product attributes are.”
But as media has fragmented and consumer attention is split every which way, it’s grown increasingly difficult for brands to break through on social media feeds.
“When I came into ITV Studios, what was happening within the media landscape at the time was that brands’ need for attention was changing slightly from ‘we don’t just want a two-second impression’ and ‘we don’t just want someone to look at something’ to ‘we want it to really mean something,’” says Scougal.
A show like Love Island, which pulls in 9 billion views on ITVS-owned platforms and 49 billion views overall on social media, has a highly engaged fanbase.
“Where brand licensing used to be ‘we’re going to license a water bottle’ or ‘we’re going to license a watch party,’ what we now see is that actually those licenses are cultural on-ramps into the passion and attention of those audiences,” says Scougal.
Takeaways: brands don’t want a two-second impression, they want meaningful engagement with audiences; brand licenses are now thought of as “cultural on-ramps” into fandoms
The poppi x Love Island breakthrough
The Pepsi-owned gut-healthy soda poppi is a salient case study. The team noticed that in 2025, social media went ballistic over Love Island USA winner Amaya Espinal. The hashtag #AmayaPapaya received 400 million mentions.
Poppi created an Amaya Papaya can mock-up that reflected the conversation, says Scougal. And from there, an ongoing conversation about a soft drink license became a physical can that went on sale for fans.
“And because of that success, that led to a bigger relationship this year in North America and the U.K.,” explains Scougal.
Last month, Studio 55 struck a partnership between Love Island and poppi for both the U.S. and U.K. versions of the show. It includes in-show integrations, Stateside retail activity, experiences in the U.K. and other digital content initiatives around forthcoming series.
“Brand licenses are now cultural on-ramps into engaged fandoms, and the marketing teams within global brands are really paying attention to that as a way to insert their brands and their messaging into high-attention and high-intent audiences,” concludes Scougal.
Takeaways: The right tie-up that taps into a moment in culture can lead to ongoing opportunities; marketing teams at global brands are keenly looking for buzzy brand license deals
Landing on Double Date Island
Building on the success of the It Started With a Kiss podcast, the relationship with Tinder came from a place of “what is the objective the brand wants to achieve, what is it they’re trying to do, and how do we then use IP, entertainment, creators and all of the things that sit within ITV Studios to go and address and answer that,” explains Scougal.
That’s inherently a very different proposition from the way some producers are approaching brand-funded entertainment, which is “‘We have a show, this is what it’s called, we need some funding to get it commissioned,’” adds the exec. “That is not necessarily where we spend a huge amount of our time.”
Double Date Island originated from a Tinder pilot for double dates that the company was keen to build upon. “We had a discussion about how we could make this into a TikTok-first show, and in working with Tinder, we developed their IP and the creative a little bit, Cowshed became involved as our production partner, TikTok are partnering with Tinder and OMD are on board as the media agency,” says Scougal.
The show, which is currently filming in Portugal, finds pairs of best friends cast from around the world going on double dates, meeting other international pairings and, as per a release, “experiencing a sun-drenched getaway of spontaneous, pressure-free connections, all captured on camera.” It will only be available to users aged 18 and over on TikTok.
The show will roll out as part of a six-week publishing and distribution window beginning in August.
While it’s too early in the process for Scougal to share details on the production, he explains that “TikTok is a platform built on authenticity, and the type of content that works is broad, but also very specific, and the way that you publish is very different to other social platforms or different content distribution platforms.”
As such, the core show is tailored as TikTok-first, and digital specialists Cowshed Studios are handling the physical production.
Reflecting on the large number of parties involved, Scougal admits there is “often an intricate network of stakeholders that need to be partnered with or managed in some way” across these deals. In addition to Studio 55, ITV Studios’ Zoo 55 is also playing a part in developing the show’s distribution strategy across social media and video platforms following the TikTok launch.
Takeaways: Double Date Island is currently in production in Portugal and will follow a six-week publishing and distribution window in August; the show is tailored to be TikTok-first, with Cowshed handling physical production
‘Fans are as valuable as the shows themselves’
What producers and anyone wanting to work with brands must remember is that the fundamentals of marketing and partnering with brands haven’t changed, says Scougal.
“The objective is still, ‘I want to talk to these people in order to get them to do this. I want to connect with these people. I want the attention of these people because I want to communicate a value or something about the product or the brand,’” he explains.
“The way you get to people’s attention is you listen to them, their values and what they’re talking about. So, audiences are key,” adds Scougal.
The executive advises keeping a laser focus on the audience you want to target. They will give you “the biggest clues and signals about how to engage them as a group.”
“We’ve got a saying, which is ‘the fans are as valuable as the shows themselves,’ and we really believe that,” says Scougal. “If you think about every partnership as a marketing vehicle, and a way of making fans feel great, entertained and seen, then I think you start in a really good place.”
Takeaways: fundamentals of marketing and working with brands haven’t changed; keep an eye on the audience for clues and signals on how to engage with them as a group
Hiring? We feature paid job listings, to book a listing, email hello@theindiehustle.com
Sponsorship? If your organisation would like to find out about sponsorship and advertising opportunities, email hello@theindiehustle.com