The mouthless face that launched an $80 billion empire

(CNN) – She weighs three apples and is five apples tall. She likes to bake cakes and dreams of being a pianist or a poet. And now, despite her ageless appearance, she is 50 years old.

Friday marks half a century since Japanese merchandising company Sanrio created the first iteration of Kitty White, or Hello Kitty, a cheerful cat girl (not, as her creator controversially revealed in 2014, a cat) who lives with the family them in the suburbs of London. In the decades since her debut, she has become a UNICEF ambassador, special envoy for Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the subject of themed restaurants, cafes, two amusement parks and even a maternity ward.

As such, Hello Kitty is also a commercial juggernaut that has earned its creator an estimated $80 billion, placing it alongside Pokémon, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie-the-Pooh as the highest-grossing franchises in 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 in the first place.

Designed to adorn children’s items and stationery, she was first drawn by Yuko Shimizu, one of Sanrio’s in-house illustrators, in 1974. The company wanted designs that embodied “kawaii”, a Japanese term for cute, and the 24-year-old’s cat. -how was the creation 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 purses alongside several other new characters.

It proved to be by far the company’s most popular new design. Sanrio’s sales soared almost immediately as her image was plastered on toys, stickers and more. But if the character’s early success can be attributed to Shimizu’s simple and memorable design — featuring a mouthless face, a yellow oval nose, whiskers and a bow — her 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 oversaw design in the late 1970s), Yamaguchi led the character’s visual identity for nearly 45 years. Speaking to CNN at Sanrio’s headquarters in Tokyo, she recalled joining the company at a time when Hello Kitty products were waning in popularity.

In 1979, Sanrio decided to revitalize the brand, and Yamaguchi was one of several illustrators tasked with creating and presenting new images. Aware that Hello Kitty was an aspiring musician, she drew a scene featuring the character surrounded by her family after receiving her first grand piano.

“Even though Hello Kitty says she wants to be a pianist, she’s never been pictured playing the piano,” she said, adding: “I was asked to be the Hello Kitty designer on the spot.”

Yamaguchi began meeting with Hello Kitty fans, past and present, to understand why sales were down. She also made a year-long formative visit to San Francisco in 1984 amid a booming US 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 a lot of friends.”

Subtle evolution

While Hello Kitty’s key features remained largely unchanged, Yamaguchi (who previously said Time magazine that the character has no mouth “so that people watching her can project their own feelings onto her face”) placed her in different scenarios, broadening her appeal.

“He’s good at sports and looks cute and chic,” she explained. “I think of 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 talks back to them in some way.”

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

It’s an achievement the illustrator traces to a letter he 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 said he was a children’s character, and he 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 the trends she was seeing in Tokyo’s Harajuku fashion district at the time, Yamaguchi began incorporating contemporary style into her designs, hoping to appeal to older fans. In 1999, Sanrio told the New York Times that the character appeared on 12,000 new product lines a year, covering almost every category imaginable, from clothing to board games, greeting cards to lunch boxes. The company also began using Hello Kitty for more adult items, such as electronics and kitchen appliances, as it became clear that nostalgia was becoming a major 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 started collecting Sanrio products in the third grade and now owns over 10,000 items emblazoned with the character’s expressionless face.

“My mom gave me Hello Kitty stationery and school supplies like pencil cases and plastic plates. When I saw them I thought they were so cute and quickly became my favorites. That’s where it started,” she said, showing CNN around 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 everyday things. I wanted to unify everything with Hello Kitty from that moment on.

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

“As life goes on, there are times when you face unpleasant or sad experiences,” she said, “During those times, looking at Hello Kitty merchandise brought me comfort and relief.”

Going global

As Japan’s economy stagnated in the 1990s, Sanrio expanded its international presence. In Hello Kitty’s early years, the company sold products door-to-door in the US, before establishing its first overseas branch of its retail store, Gift Gate, in San Jose in 1976. But following an explosion of Western interest in Japanese culture — from “Dragon Ball Z” to Tamagotchis and Beyblades — captured the imagination of American consumers at the turn of the millennium, according to Atsuo Nakayama, a Japanese sociologist who specializes in the industry entertainment.

“Right after 9/11, the world was changing,” he told CNN. “And I think the Japanese ‘kawaii’ culture was a suitable alternative for America, in a way.”

Much of Hello Kitty’s commercial success has been achieved through licensing. She spawned books, video games and animated TV series such as the long-running “Hello Kitty and Friends” that helped develop her character. (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 fueled fears that Hello Kitty’s cultural relevance was fading, the company’s share price has skyrocketed over the past two years. It is now more than 10 times the lowest in the Covid era. According to Atsuo, nostalgia is again a key driving force – at home in Japan and abroad.

“Hello Kitty is growing again in America, and I think that’s because the first generation has now become parents and passed on (interests) to their children,” Atsuo said, adding: “(Her popularity) has grown and grew. it has gone down many times like this and creates a regular opportunity for people who were captivated by Hello Kitty to remember it and want to collect it again.”

Sanrio’s recent successes are due in part to its diversification away from Hello Kitty. The character now accounts for only about 30 percent of Sanrio’s gross profit from product sales and licensing, down from 76 percent a decade earlier, according to the report. Wall Street Journal. Recent creations like Gudetama (a lazy egg yolk) and Aggressive Retsuko (an introverted death-metal-loving red panda) have both appeared in their own Netflix series.

However, even as Sanrio’s business model changes, Yamaguchi believes Hello Kitty will endure.

“Of course, there are many characters in the world that have been around longer than Hello Kitty,” the illustrator said, adding: “I hope she will continue to work hard so that she can celebrate her 100th birthday in 50 years.”