Reach Out and Touch Someone: Thinking Through Sanrio's Social Communication Empire

Abstract

Hello Kitty (b. 1974) in the year 2009 was all grown up. Indeed, Sanrio, the mouthless feline's maker, took the opportunity for a year-long celebration of her 35th anniversary that extended into 2010. Thirty-five: the year marks the standard end of young adult promise in Japan, after which traditionally new employment opportunities close, scholarships for post-baccalaureate education end, and fertility rates in women decline. But what does 35 years mean for a product? More specifically, what does it mean for a product that has achieved iconic status as a symbol of youthful innocence dubbed kawaii (cute) in ever-widening, global settings? Among other things, 35 years suggests the possibility of true trans-generational appeal, especially with mother-daughter pairs of Hello Kitty fans. In the case of Hello Kitty, 35 years also signals a sufficient time span from which nostalgia may be considered viable and ultimately marketable. In this paper I use Hello Kitty's 35th anniversary as a lens upon kawaii – Japanese Cute – by which we might look backward and forward to the consumer culture surrounding this now ‘middle-aged’ object, primarily in Japan, but extended through its global applications.