Pink Globalization Hello Kitty’s Trek across the Pacific by Christine R. Yano

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Chapter Two Marketing Global Kitty

Strategies to Sell Friendship and “Happiness”

Sanrio means “Saintly River” or “Pure River.” It is a name that reflects the spirit of our company, and the goal that we set for ourselves: to help build a sincere, virtous [sic] society. . . .Through our wide range of communication media, including Social Communication gift merchandise, greeting cards, music, films, books, and live entertainment, Sanrio aims to help link the many tributaries of good will and camaraderie around the world into one ever-­ broadening confluence of friendship. — Sanrio company philosophy as presented on its website (www.sanriolicensing .com/philosophy.php, June 20, 2010; no longer available)

We [Sanrio marketers] kind of build friends [through celebrity outreach] and then let someone else discover the story. —  Bill Hensley, Sanrio, Inc., marketing director, personal communication, June 19, 2002

There’s something about working with characters and a brand that makes other people happy that somehow filters its way through us. —  Sarah Walsworth, Sanrio, Inc., visual merchandiser, personal communication, March 25, 2010

You can never have too many friends. — Kitty White, aka Hello Kitty (hello-­kitty.sanriotown.com/, September 29, 2012)

Sanrio establishes its global networks as an “enabler of intimacy” through locally derived marketing practices. This chapter takes the words of the founder, Tsuji Shintarō, as expressed in the company philosophy given above as a quasi-­religious


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