The Secret of Hello Kitty's Success

I was glad the Japan Society sponsored a lecture/Q&A with Ken Belson, co-author of Hello Kitty: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon last week, because Belson brought along something the book sorely lacked: pictures. I mean, really, how can you do a book about Hello Kitty and not have any pictures of her in it? Anyway, Belson, joined by Naomi Moriyama of Digital Powerhouse, filled us in on Hello Kitty--as if any of us in the packed audience really needed an introduction; heck, I'd have worn my Pochacco T-shirt if it wasn't at the bottom of the laundry bag. Almost everybody there, except for a group of West Point cadets standing politely at the back of the room, having relinquished their seats to latecomers, appeared to be an avid collector, and frankly I'm not sure the cadets weren't too--if the evidence wasn't visible, it was almost always audible. So of course hearts were really pumping after the show, when Sanrio's American marketing director helped raffle off a slew of Sanrio items, from a tiny purse to a color TV; the hot ticket item, though, was a toaster that actually burns Hello Kitty's face onto the bread. I was despondent to lose out on that one, the irony made even more thorough by it going to the only other reporter in the room... Anyway, the book's story is interesting from a business angle, though Belson's passion for Kitty doesn't really come through quite as effectively as it does in person.