Hello Kitty turns 50: what is the secret to the character’s longevity?

It weighs three apples and is five apples tall. She enjoys baking cookies and dreams of being a pianist or poet. And now, despite her timeless appearance, she turns 50.

This Friday (1st) marks half a century since Japanese merchandising company Sanrio created the first version of Kitty White, or Hello Kitty, a cheerful feline girl (not a cat, as her creator controversially revealed) who lives with her family in the suburbs of London.

In the five decades since her debut, she has become an ambassador for Unicef, a special envoy for Japan’s Foreign Ministry and the subject of restaurants, cafes, two amusement parks and even a maternity hospital. As such, Hello Kitty is also a commercial colossus that earned its creator around US$80 billion (more than R$460 billion), placing it alongside Pokémon, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh as one of the most profitable franchises in the world. history.

Unlike others on the list, however, the merchandise wasn’t a profitable extension of Hello Kitty’s on-screen popularity, it was her raison d’être from the beginning. Designed to adorn children’s and stationery items, it was first designed by Yuko Shimizu, one of Sanrio’s in-house illustrators, in 1974.

The company wanted designs that incorporated “kawaii,” the Japanese term for cuteness, and the 24-year-old’s feline creation was inspired by a kitten her father had given her as a gift.

Hello Kitty made her commercial debut the following year, appearing on a line of vinyl coin purses alongside several other new characters. It has proven to be by far the company’s most popular new design. Sanrio’s sales soared almost immediately, with its image being plastered on toys, stickers, and more.

But if the character’s initial success can be attributed to Shimizu’s simple and memorable design – consisting of a mouthless face, yellow oval nose, whiskers and a bow – his status as a pop culture icon is due to illustrator Yuko Yamaguchi.

Considered Hello Kitty’s third designer (Shimizu left Sanrio three years after inventing the character and was replaced by Setsuko Yonekubo, who briefly supervised the design in the late 1970s), Yamaguchi has directed the character’s visual identity for nearly 45 years.

In an interview with CNN at Sanrio’s headquarters in Tokyo, she recalled that she joined the company at a time when Hello Kitty products were declining in popularity. In 1979, Sanrio decided to revitalize the brand, and Yamaguchi was one of several illustrators tasked with creating and presenting new images.

Yamaguchi began meeting with Hello Kitty fans, old and new, to understand why sales were down. She also made a formative year-long visit to San Francisco in 1984, amid a growing U.S. interest in teddy bears.

After returning to Japan, Yamaguchi began creating new designs and a cast of friends for Hello Kitty – including the teddy bear, Tiny Chum.

“I wanted Hello Kitty to become more energetic,” she said. “And since she was the face of Sanrio, and was born as a symbol of friendship, I wanted to make her many friends.”

While Hello Kitty’s main features have remained largely unchanged, Yamaguchi (who previously told Time magazine that the character has no mouth “so that people who look at her can project their own feelings onto her face”) has placed her in different settings, broadening its appeal.

“She’s good at sports, and she looks cute and chic too,” he explained. “I see it as a blank canvas that you can turn into all kinds of things. There’s not much that doesn’t suit her… I think when everyone talks to Hello Kitty, she probably responds in some way.”

Sales of Hello Kitty products flourished in Japan between the 1980s and mid-1990s. Much of the company’s earlier merchandise was aimed at young girls, including school supplies and personal care items like toothbrushes. But even then, illustrator Yamaguchi knew that the character would need to evolve and grow with his fans.

It is a perception that the illustrator goes back to a letter she received from a fan in 1987: “She was a big fan of Hello Kitty, but, in the letter, she wrote that her friends and parents had told her that she was a children’s character, and that She should have gotten over it. But she didn’t want to, so she asked me to make products for high school students like her.”

Inspired by trends she saw in Tokyo’s Harajuku fashion district at the time, Yamaguchi began incorporating contemporary style into her designs, hoping to attract older fans.

In 1999, Sanrio told the New York Times that the character was appearing in 12,000 new product lines a year, spanning nearly every category imaginable, from clothing to board games, greeting cards to lunch boxes. The company also began using Hello Kitty on more grown-up items like electronics and appliances as it became clear that nostalgia was becoming a big selling point.

As a result, some of Hello Kitty’s biggest fans today are those who grew up with her in the 1980s and ’90s. Among them is Asako Kanda, who began collecting Sanrio products in third grade and now owns more than 10,000 items adorned with the expressionless face. of the character.

“My mom gave me Hello Kitty stationery and school supplies, like pencil cases and plastic clipboards. When I saw them, I thought they were so cute, and they quickly became my favorite. That’s where it started,” she said, showing the CNN a room dedicated to Hello Kitty in her Tokyo home.

“Once I started buying things for myself, I was able to get items for the kitchen, bathroom and other daily needs. I wanted everything Hello Kitty from that point on,” she added.

After more than 36 years of collecting, Kanda still buys about two Hello Kitty items every month. Sanrio releases new products weekly, and it scrutinizes them for anything that is “memorable or cute.”

“As life progresses, there are times when you face unpleasant or sad experiences,” she said, “During these times, looking at Hello Kitty products brought me comfort and solace.”

As Japan’s economy stagnated in the 1990s, Sanrio expanded its international presence. In Hello Kitty’s early years, the company had sold products door-to-door in the US, before establishing the first overseas branch of its retail store, Gift Gate, in San Jose in 1976.

But after an explosion of Western interest in Japanese culture — from “Dragon Ball Z” to Tamagotchis and Beyblade — it captured the imagination of American consumers around the turn of the millennium, according to Atsuo Nakayama, a Japanese sociologist who specializes in the entertainment industry.

“Right after 9/11, the world was changing,” he told CNN . “And I think Japanese “kawaii” culture was a suitable alternative to America, in some ways.”

Much of Hello Kitty’s commercial success was achieved through licensing. She spawned books, video games and animated TV series, like the long-running “Hello Kitty and Friends,” which helped develop her character further. Although, despite being raised in London, she was given a North American accent in the English dubbed versions.

She has also been part of deals with major consumer and luxury brands, and has appeared on an EVA Air plane, Fender Stratocaster guitars and Swarovski jewelry.

And while Sanrio’s declining fortunes in the early 2010s raised fears that Hello Kitty’s cultural relevance was waning, the company’s share price has soared over the past two years. It is now more than 10 times above its Covid-era low.

According to Atsuo, nostalgia is once again a fundamental driving force, both in Japan and abroad. “Hello Kitty is on the rise again in America, and I think that’s because the first generation has now become parents and passed [seus interesses] for your children,” Atsuo said. “[Sua popularidade] It has gone up and down many times like this, and it creates a regular opportunity for people who were captivated by Hello Kitty to remember her and want to collect her again.”

Sanrio’s recent successes are also due, in part, to its diversification beyond Hello Kitty. The character now represents only about 30% of Sanrio’s gross profit from product sales and licensing, down from 76% a decade ago, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Recent creations like Gudetama (a lazy egg yolk) and Aggressive Retsuko (an introverted red panda who loves death metal) have appeared in their own Netflix series.

However, even with Sanrio’s business model changing, Yamaguchi believes Hello Kitty will endure. “Of course, there are many characters in the world that have been around longer than Hello Kitty,” said the illustrator, adding: “I hope she continues to work hard so that she can celebrate her 100th birthday in 50 years.”

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This content was originally published in Hello Kitty turns 50: what is the secret to the character’s longevity? on the CNN Brasil website.

Source: CNN Brasil