Sanrio Company, Ltd. (株式会社サンリオ, Kabushiki-gaisha Sanrio) is a Japanese entertainment company that designs, licenses, and manufactures products focusing on the kawaii ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories, which are sold worldwide, including at specialty brand retail stores in Japan. Sanrio's best-known character is
Sanrio Company, Ltd. (株式会社サンリオ, Kabushiki-gaisha Sanrio) is a Japanese entertainment company that designs, licenses, and manufactures products focusing on the kawaii ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories, which are sold worldwide, including at specialty brand retail stores in Japan. Sanrio's best-known character is Hello Kitty, a cartoon cat and one of the most successful marketing brands in the world.
Besides selling character goods, Sanrio takes part in film production and publishing. They own the rights to the Mr. Men characters and Japanese licensing rights to the Peanuts characters. Their animatronics branch, Kokoro Company, Ltd. (kokoro being Japanese for "heart"), is best known for the Actroid android. The company also runs several KFC franchises across Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
Sanrio has created over 450 characters as of 2022, the best known of which is the white cat character Hello Kitty from 1974. Other well-known characters include the rabbit My Melody from 1975, the frog Keroppi from 1988, the penguin Bad Badtz-Maru from 1993, the yellow dog Pompompurin from 1996, the white dog Cinnamoroll from 2001, the rabbit Kuromi from 2005, the animal series Jewelpet from 2008, the egg character Gudetama from 2013, and the red panda Aggressive Retsuko from 2015.
Notable designers of Sanrio characters include Yuko Shimizu, original designer of Hello Kitty, Yuko Yamaguchi, lead designer for most of Hello Kitty's history, and Miyuki Okumura, original designer of Cinnamoroll.
Since 1986, Sanrio has held the annual Sanrio Character Ranking poll, where fans can vote on their favorite characters. It began in the Strawberry Newspaper published by Sanrio in Japan, but voting now takes place online and is open to international audiences.
Besides their own original characters, Sanrio also owns the rights to the Mr. Men characters and Japanese licensing rights to the Peanuts characters.
Abstract Brand characters are ubiquitous in marketing. Previous studies establish their relevance in advertising. Surprisingly, little research exists on how to build and sustain brand characters. Adopting a case-study approach, this paper explores the brand management strategies of Sanrio's iconic character Hello Kitty, a cat epitomising cuteness and innocence. Findings indicate that eight tactics help to build and sustain the Hello Kitty brand: keep it simple, character licensing, third-party collaboration, capitalising on nostalgia, product-line extensions, brand extensions, sustaining consumer interests, and harnessing technology. The paper also identifies some challenges facing Hello Kitty.
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