Hello Kitty is a popular character developed by Sanrio in 1974. She has become a global icon, appearing on various products and having her own theme park. Hello Kitty has been used in educational products and received recognition from UNICEF. She has also been used as punishment for police officers in Thailand.
Hello Kitty is an iconic character developed by the Japanese company Sanrio. She has become one of the most famous characters in the world, appearing on everything from handbags and cell phones to dolls and dresses. Hello Kitty is a cartoon cat with a big head, no mouth, small eyes and a button nose. She wears a red ribbon in her hair, and is an almost incarnate form of cute.
Hello Kitty is part of a fictional world, developed in 1974, that contains not only her, but many of her friends, including Chococat and Cinnamoroll. She has an entire family structure, with a father, George White, a mother, Mary White, grandparents, Anthony and Margaret White, and a twin sister, Mimmy White. She also has a pet cat, named Charmmy White, who looks a lot like Hello Kitty, but is less anthropomorphic and more like a real cat.
Hello Kitty was essentially conceived as a marketing vehicle to sell branded products. The first Hello Kitty product was a coin purse with her likeness appearing on it, and within a few years this was expanded to a number of other products. Now, Hello Kitty appears on virtually every product imaginable, and its license earns more than $1 billion US dollars (USD) annually. Hello Kitty also has its own theme park, Sanrio Puroland.
There have been a number of Hello Kitty television shows produced over the years and she has made appearances in many other shows. The first cartoon entirely dedicated to Hello Kitty was Hello Kitty’s Furry Tale Theater, which aired in 1986 in the United States, and was produced by DiC Entertainment. Then came Hello Kitty and Friends, which was produced by the Japanese studio Madhouse in 1991. Then, from 1993 to 1994, Toei Animation produced Hello Kitty’s Paradise, which aired on Toon Disney in the United States. Most recently, Hello Kitty’s Stump Village was produced as a clay show and will be released in the United States.
Hello Kitty has also been heavily branded in a number of educational products, helping introduce children to any number of concepts. Many of these have been very positive for education, leading the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, to give Hello Kitty a special honor, naming her a Special Friend of Children of UNICEF. Other branding opportunities teach kids how to interact as better consumers, most notably his branding on Legend Credit’s Mastercard. The Hello Kitty card is designed as a way to show kids how they can shop and use debit cards, while preparing them for adult responsibilities and budgeting.
Because of its iconic cuteness, Hello Kitty has also been used in many new ways. One of the most famous of these, which received a great deal of news coverage, was using her likeness as punishment for police officers in Thailand for minor infractions. Officers who do things like park in restricted areas, or have a history of showing up to work late, are required to wear a Hello Kitty-branded armband. This cute icon is seen in contrast to the masculine image most officers are trying to project, and thus acts as a deterrent, similar in scope to prisons that require tough inmates to wear pink uniforms.
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