Hello Kitty wearing her 50th anniversary dress at the Mynavi TOKYO GIRLS COLLECTION 2024 SPRING/SUMMER event at Yoyogi National Stadium in March. (©マイナビ TGC 2024 S/S)
Let us take you back to 1974, 50 years ago. It was in the era of bleached jeans and Barbra Streisand, and convenience stores were starting to pop up in Japan. Since then, despite many changes, one thing has stayed the same: Hello Kitty has been popular.
In 2024, Hello Kitty is celebrating her 50th anniversary with fans worldwide. A special exhibition will be held at the Tokyo National Museum starting on her birthday, November 1. Pop-up cafes are being opened around Japan. Major fashion brands like UNIQLO are joining in the celebration with special edition goods.
Sanrio has announced the theme for its 50th anniversary year as "Friend the Future," expressing gratitude to fans and a desire to step into the future together. To thank her fans directly, Hello Kitty is taking on the challenge of visiting 100 Sanrio shops across Japan.
Since her creation in 1974, Hello Kitty's cuteness has spread to virtually every realm worldwide. She has collaborated with countless companies, prompted animations and videogames, and inspired generations of people everywhere.
To better understand her incredible popularity, JAPAN Forward spoke to Dr Christine R Yano, an anthropologist who has researched Hello Kitty and pop culture extensively.
"Whether for a preschooler, a teenager, a mother, or a punk rocker, Hello Kitty has different appeals. That kind of flexibility, of Hello Kitty as a symbol, an icon, is a kind of genius," she explained. "Hello Kitty was at the forefront of making cuteness acceptable globally."
How has Hello Kitty become such a phenomenon? We look at major milestones that marked the history of this influential character.
Hello Kitty's Start
Hello Kitty came to life in 1974, and she debuted in stores the following year. She was designed for Petite Purse, a vinyl coin purse, with her now-familiar overalls. Any girl growing up in 1970s Japan would remember it well — it became so popular that Sanrio couldn't keep it in stock.
Despite her fame, few may know that Hello Kitty's full name is Kitty White. She hails from the suburbs of London, in the United Kingdom. Her father, George White, is known for his sharp sense of humor, while her mother, Mary White, is a fantastic baker of Hello Kitty's favorite treat — apple pie.
She also has a shy twin sister, Mimmy, who wears a matching ribbon, but in yellow. Hello Kitty's signature slogan? The adorable maxim, "You can never have too many friends!"
That first coin purse is now so rare and coveted that Sanrio only owns one, and it's reportedly located in the head office.
The Power of 'Small Gift, Big Smile'
The man behind this success was Shintaro Tsuji. He started the company that became Sanrio in 1960. Tsuji wished to create something that could bring a smile to people's faces. In Japan, there was a culture of gift-giving to colleagues and relatives. Tsuji saw an opportunity to become the purveyor of gift culture for everyone.
This is encapsulated in the company's founding motto: "Small Gift, Big Smile." The idea is that simple, thoughtful gestures, like small gifts, could express deep gratitude to others. Fittingly, initial products included everyday items, such as stationery, and greeting cards.
But, what else should they create? A hint came early on. Among the many items they produced, those decorated with a strawberry design performed better.
"Sanrio found out that cuteness added value and enhanced the experience. It changed the quality of what that thing was," summarized Dr Yano.
Tsuji's stroke of genius led him to tap into that fuzzy, warm feeling that makes you say "Kawaii!" (how cute!). The company invested in an in-house design team, who went on to build the success of Hello Kitty. Sanrio opened its first flagship shop, Gift Gate, in 1971 in Shinjuku, near some of the most prestigious department stores in the capital. Today, the company has products featuring over 450 characters sold in Sanrio shops all over Japan.
With Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters' popularity skyrocketing in Japan, the next step was to go global.
Going to the United States
The first overseas Gift Gate opened in San Jose, California, in 1976. Sanrio's top character Hello Kitty quickly captured the hearts of young girls who found comfort, belonging, and most importantly, a friend in her.
"Hello Kitty became really important for Asian American females, especially in middle school and high school," Yano explained. "While Asian American boys had Bruce Lee, they had Hello Kitty."
"One Asian American female [interviewee] said her nickname in high school was Hello Kitty. It was something she was proud of. A degree of identification and even heroizing of [having] a place for Asian things in America," expanded Dr Yano.
Spreading Hello Kitty's Appeal
One of the ways Sanrio reached a wider audience in the United States was through licensing. They teamed up with chain stores like Walmart and Target to bring Sanrio's appeal to people everywhere, and Hello Kitty's popularity soared.
Yet, it wasn't just consumer trends that drove the character's popularity. It had a kind of "profundity" to it, as Dr Yano put it. Hello Kitty seemed to truly appeal to young girls as a companion when things were difficult. Like a "quasi-safety blanket," she explained. "I've heard of those who would bring a small Hello Kitty object when going to the dentist."
To illustrate her point, Dr Yano added that many adults have fond memories of the Hello Kitty designs from their childhood. While curating the exhibition "Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty" in Los Angeles in 2014, she recalled: "Visitors would look for the Hello Kitty released in their birth year. They would say, 'This is my Hello Kitty!'"
Another Sanrio strategy was to listen carefully to consumer trends, something it carries on to this day. Hello Kitty always seeks to connect with her global fans. In the game Hello Kitty Around the World, she takes players on an adventure to 50 countries. Additionally, in a recent AR display for her 50th anniversary, she appeared at famous landmarks in Paris, Taipei, New York, and more.
Goods for All Ages, Everywhere
The company's strategy involves collaborating with other companies and also ties into Hello Kitty's superpower: adapting to the times to appeal to different demographics. As the girls grew up, Sanrio reached them as young women and then mothers.
"[Hello Kitty goods] went from erasers to rice cookers, bicycles, vacuum cleaners," said Dr Yano, smiling.
Sanrio's Hello Kitty designer Yuko Yamaguchi helped with updates to reflect trends: Hello Kitty played tennis, she wore sunglasses. A luxurious and stylish Hello Kitty wallet debuted in the 1990s, appealing to fashionable girls.
Collaborations flourished, ranging from high-end brands like Balenciaga to casual retailers like Primark. By the 2000s, Hello Kitty had charmed celebrities like Mariah Carey, Cameron Diaz, and Paris Hilton with her kawaii power. To date, Hello Kitty is said to have inspired 50,000 products, sold in 130 countries and regions.
Bringing Smiles Through Entertainment
In 1990, Sanrio opened its first theme park Sanrio Puroland in Tama. In addition, Hello Kitty has also been represented in anime, films, and even in a videogame, Hello Kitty Island Adventure. The game was so popular, it became the Apple Arcade Game of 2023. The TV series Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures (2020) has been a runaway success in Europe, especially in Italy and France.
When analyzing why Hello Kitty transcends market barriers, Dr Yano highlighted many possible reasons, such as its visual elegance. "Hello Kitty can be pared down to symbols" like just her bow or silhouette. "From a design point of view, that's quite genius," Yano explained.
Nevertheless, ultimately, she said, "It's the ineffable, which cannot be replicated. That element of luck, serendipity, of doing the right thing at the right time, that Sanrio managed to achieve. If it was so easily replicable, everyone would."
Bringing a Positive Impact to the World
Since her early years, Hello Kitty has spread Sanrio's positive message around the world. In 1983, she became UNICEF Ambassador, joining the ranks of Audrey Hepburn and later David Beckham.
In 2020, when Tomokuni Tsuji stepped into his grandfather's role to become CEO, Sanrio's vision became "One World, Connecting Smiles." As part of efforts to realize this vision, Hello Kitty is helping to bring relief to the disaster-stricken area of Noto in Japan, among other activities in the Sanrio Nakayoku Project.
As we wrapped up the conversation with Dr Yano, one thing that shone through is how Hello Kitty's universality is ultimately tied to values of friendship and compassion.
She said warmly, "Hello Kitty has been so much to so many people. In this world that has been so crazy with pandemics, violence, global warming, with all kinds of threats to our sense of well-being, what's to say that a character from Japan couldn't be a source of a kind of healing, of human to human empathy? That's a wonderful gift in some ways."
Looking to the next 50 years, Yano concluded: "I think, in this 21st century maybe we all need a Hello Kitty icon somewhere."
This article is published in cooperation with Sanrio Company Ltd. All Sanrio characters and character images: ©️ 2024 SANRIO CO., LTD.
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Author: Arielle Busetto
