Ventura County Star from Ventura, California • 64

mmm i 1 1 1 I Our theme pages are dHferent each Sunday Here what to expect VMTkM DM tar VMHm flume Ms Thame How to Thame ThaftLii UMOM Theme Wiion Hwnnfinq Sunday E6 Becoming a stepmother and discovering Hello Kitty's girlie fan The 45-year-old marketing director at Toshiba America Hello Kitty items she has collected which she keeps in her il ft 51 I FC The Star HcMMiaiKRT appeal turned Amy Dalphy into a in Irvine shows off some of the office and her car Cypress holds the plastic toy-figurine license Hello Kitty has even teamed up for -projects with artists Shag and Paul Frank The Sanrio marketing machine has managed to spend zilch on advertising preferring product placement and catering to celebrities Cameron Driaz sporting a Kitty neduaceto die 2003 Then Choice Awards? That was no coincidence Such maverick marketing attracted Amy Dalphy to this 1 feline phenomenon about 10 years ago But it wis becoming a atepmom and -discovering HeUo Kitty girlie 1 that made a fen of a 45year-oki director at Tbshiba America in Irvine an amazing example of branding Hello Kitty is one of die best-known images in the world like Coca Cola or Procter said Dalphy whose office reflects her affection for Hello Kitty Besides the usual stationery items Dalphy has a Hello Kitty minifridge computer mouse and mouse pad desk dock wall clock calendar glasses case and notebook case plus a Hdk) Kitty outlined in rhinestones oa her digital organizer you were in my office be overwhelmed and have a lot of fun stuff to play Dalphy said just so Globally the HeUo Kitty franchise is a $42 billion -industry accounting for half of Sanrio annual revenue Oct 312004 Feline created in Japan is now the meow Everywhere SY By Peter Larsaoi Jhe Orange County Register hoever said you be -everything to everyone dearly never said it to ffeDo Kitty As the cute little kitty with the bow on her ear turns 30 30! she is everywhere all the time in every style or setting imaginable The birthday is Monday Hello Kitty is a pencil a computer a toaster She is a taxicab in Japan and a theme park there too She is a Happy Meal toy and an adult battery-operated massager She is at once mass market and underground a girl and a grown woman If she has no mouth ift all the better to make her what you want her to be and make her that much more a world icon doesn't have a mouth so I think that when a child and drawn to die character she is feeling the same emotions drat feeling so she becomes your friend" said Marie Moss author of Kitty Hello Everywhere Hello Kitty turns 30 with her appeal as breed as ever Whaft it all about? Hello Kitty isn't talking remember no mouth but her fans have plenty to say Christine hno is an anthropology professor and as such easily spins off theories like provides a fertile ground for exploring issues of gender and power through global consumer Which basically means Yhno sees Hello Kitty as cute not too saccharine not too sexy and as such her sweet silent (harm has conquered the world provides what seems to be a very harmless blank slate unlike Barbie which has such a strong said Yhno who started to study the Hello Kitty phenomenon about five years ago as an outgrowth of teaching Japanese pop culture not much you can do to Barbie other than put costumes on Vhno said Kitty I think people can project on her what they want whrther ift done ironically like women on Wall Street with Hello Kitty products or done straight as with your items just scratch the surface i TIMELINE: LIFE AND TIMES OF HELLO KITTY Hello Kitty is very Japanese But her Japanese creators from Sanrio Co wanted to give her a British background Thus Kitty was bom in a London suburb 30 years ago to the White family Her parents an architect and a housewife welcomed not just Hello on that first day of November but also her twin sister Mimmy And as they say the rest is history Now 1 1974: The white cartoon cat debuts Created by Sanrio designer Shimizu Yuko this new creature was named Kitty and came to be known as Hello Kitty 1981: Hello Kitty merchandise expands into telephones Cameras and electronic products The first Hello Kitty movie was made called and Mimms New Umbrella" 1983: UNICEF creates the exclusive title of Special Friend of Children for -Hello Kitty 1987: CBS broadcasts the first Hello Kitty TV cartoon: Kitty's Furry Tale Theater" 1990: Sanrio Puroland amusement park opens in Tama City Japan 1992: Hello hair bow shows up in pink 1995: The bow becomes a flower 1999: Sanrio launches the Hello Kitty baby series in response to young mothers who have been loyal fans 2000: Hello Kitty cafe opens in Honolulu Shuts down a few -years later after lease runs out 2001: Sanrio designers bring Hello Kitty into the new century introducing goth Kitty punk Kitty and hip-hop Kitty 2002: Singer Usa Loeb a huge Hello Kitty fen plasters toe icon on her new CD titled Lisa" 2004: Hello Kitty launches a debit card in toe United States Tamara Chuang The Orange County Register freak so much so that her 2002 album Lisa" included a cover image of HeOo Kitty in her very own smart-girl glasses As a little giri she first spotted HeOo Kilty in a store near her boms in Dallas' "Everything was Loeb said were HeOo Kitty erasers that had a memorable smell dose to taffjv-" As an adult ahe could afford more than erasers and especially with touts to Japan indulged her love for HeOo Kitty everything from watches to guitars to a ripe steamer see HeOo Kilty as being slightiy sophisticated and ift -funny when you find her in the most bizarre Loeb said the juxtaposition of something thaft cute and Stylized on something so mundane some sort of inlePectual satisfaction that you grin and there some sort a deeper sense of Ift a pretty safe bet dial Paris and Nicky Hilton spending much time considering the irony or subtext of applying Japanese character design to a toaster But there they are as well as Cameron Diaz and Mariah Carey and Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwen Stefani and on and on wearing HeOo Kitty T-shirts and jewelry making Hello Kilty waffles and toast think celebrities are now wanting to break out and create their own personal style and not be dictated to by their saidlkrinaThnintinoaLos Angdesbased accessories whose celebrity-favored i include toe Pink Head i Kitty line which portrays Kitty with the bright toons hair the designer wests something like 1 HedoKitty shows they have their own sense of style HuantinosakL Distributed bp Knight Riddsrlhbunt Servian The Orange Comfy Register Tease if you must but girls with allowances have morphed into women with salaries and fond memories of the cute white kitty Hello Kitty merchandise sales hit a half-billion dollars in the United States last year and thaft not from 95-cent -Hello Kitty erasers Sales are growing about 20 percent a year due largely to Sanrio Cab move in the mid-1990s to license the heck out af its cartoon fat cat Once limited to Sanrio stores and tiny kiosks at major department stores Hello Kitty products are showing up at mgstHot'Ibpic 1 Amazonxom even Mervyn Today Sanrio works with 120 US licensees who make Hello Kitty products ranging from televisions to beach cruisers steeringwbeel coven to credit cards In any month there are some 400 new Sanrio products launched Kitty is a lifestyle brand and we needed to get products into those said Bill Hensley Sanrio marketing director best at stationery and school supplies the core essence of what you may remember from several years ago But to become a lifestyle brand we needed to work with others who have the expertise (in their product niche) Sanrio picked Nirve Sports Ltd of Fountain Valley to -handle the pink bicycles Tbymaker Bandai America in -f ics- Ji Ask a like Sheri Hladky what it is about Hello Kitty and you risk an exasperated look that says I "What part of small and cute and pink and kitty don't you get' So while Sheri bounced from one candy-cdored display to the next at the Sanrio store her mom tried to explain think we like it because ift said Kathy Hladky sweet too and for a little girl thaft the way it should be sweet and lovable and her mom continued we get Sheri asked bouncing into the conversation with the Hello Kitty coffee maker which her mother turned down on grounds that die family coffee drinker Dad might not appreciate its charm For every giri who grows out of Hello Kitty thereto a grown woman walking around with a purse of kitty Idtach in my purse right said Fean Palmer 25 a lifelong fen man I have a wallet makeup bag change purses cellphone charms I tried to get the col phone but it doesn't work with my cell-phone A registered nurse Palmer wean Hello Kitty scrubs to her "job at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles always' get comments: Oh how cuter Jonica Motoike 38 stops by the store at least once a week Tm she said I see it and really want it I biqr it because it might get add and not be there next With hundreds of HeOo Kitty items is it a hobby? An obsession? 1 think ift Motoike said with a laugh better than cocaine At least I have something to show for Hals lUty Is Up Lisa Loeb wears smart-giil Lisa Loeb majored in comparative literature at an Ivy League school Lisa Loeb is a Grammy-nominated introspective singer songwriter And you guessed where this was gomg didn't you? Lisa Loeb is a megtHeOo Kitty CO" -V -y -W rr isr- mg.