One more personal question to bobbie7-ga

Hi Martin!

Here is my comment from your question
"Branding as a religion QUESTION 1 - more ideas are welcome!" 
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=286293#a


Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty is a brand that consumers of all ages are devoted to and
it has achieved near cult-like status.

?Meet Hello Kitty: a billion-dollar Japanese cartoon character who
inspires implausible devotion among her east Asian followers.?
http://www.worldlink.co.uk/stories/storyReader$238


?As Hello Kitty is featuring strongly in our Great Asian Brands
survey, let's have a closer look at how strong this brand has become -
proof that you can brand anything.?

?Hello Kitty is an idea based on a cartoon character of a small cat
that looks kind and cute, with a button nose, two black dot-yes, six
whiskers, and a ribbon or flower in her hair?.

?Adored by many demographic segments of the market, Hello Kitty's main
target audience, as expected, is children, but Sanrio says it has now
successfully extended the brand to teenage women from above 20 years.
Hello Kitty has become an icon with global appeal. As the girls, who
first bought her when they were young, grow older, they nostalgically
buy Hello Kitty products as adults.?
Excerpted from Branding in Asia by Paul Temporal
http://www.brandingasia.com/cases/case7.htm


Here is a picture of a person with a Hello Kitty Tattoo
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22hello+Kitty%22+tattoo


HELLO KITTY: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar
Feline Phenomenon
by: Ken Belson & Brian Bremner, Wiley 2003

?Her moon-shaped face has been slapped on every imaginable product:
clothing and toys, of course, but also toasters, trashcans and, for a
while, automobiles. She has spawned TV shows and a newspaper, and has
become one of the most coveted images in the world.?

(..)


?By looking at Hello Kitty, the authors hope to show that Sanrio
stumbled onto one of the most ingenious formulas in the history of
modern branding. By sticking her cute face on practically everything,
Sanrio has created an entire commercial category where cute and
consumers converge, often in unexpected ways. Though Japan is Kitty?s
home, her brand power has allowed her to spread throughout Asia, and
more recently, to the U.S. and Europe.?

?How did a cartoon character so simple in design--a round head, button
nose, a red ribbon and no mouth--achieve near cult-like status
internationally as a fashion icon? Kitty?s designers at Sanrio in
Tokyo gave her a birthplace in London. She weighs the same as three
apples, likes to play in the forest, practice piano or bake. To
ordinary Japanese, these are associations with what they imagine to be
provincial English life. But to kids in Taiwan or Hong Kong, where
Kitty is all the rage, the fur ball is decidedly Japanese.?

Wallstraits Book Review
http://www.wallstraits.com/books/bookreview.asp?bookcode=hellokitty


Hello Kitty's fame has risen to cult status. 
The Makoto Bank has launched Hello Kitty credit cards, cash cards and
account books.
http://test.ieatpe.org.tw/tit/tit2_16.htm


?It appears that many people are entranced by Hello Kitty. But, as
strange as it may seem to outsiders, I'm not the most obsessed member
of this group. A girl who was working the cash register a while back
at the Eckerd Drugs on Guadalupe had a Hello Kitty tattoo prominently
located on an upper limb.?
http://weeklywire.com/ww/11-08-99/austin_xtra_feature.html


Here?s another good article.
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSFeatures9912/22_cute.html


Thanks again,
Bobbie7

As always Bobby7 is a star!