Author: Times Finance Yu Xiaojuan
President Nobutaro Tsuji and Hello kitty. Image source: Business person
The favorite of countless girls - Hello Kitty, her "dad" is about to retire.
According to previous reports by CNN, Japan's Sankei Shimbun and other media, Tsuji Nobutaro, the founder of Hello Titty and the president of Japan's Sanrio Company, officially stepped down today (July 1) and his 31-year-old grandson Tomoku Tsuji took over the position. This is the first time the company has changed its top management since its establishment.
Tsuji Nobutaro (left) and grandson Tsuji Tomohiro (right). Image source: Reuters
Tsuji Shintaro
was born in 1974. Hello Kitty is 46 years old.
mentions Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck , people can immediately think of Disney, but when it comes to hello kitty, it seems to take some effort to remember which company she belongs to. This may be the reflection of its founder Nobutaro Tsuji.
Tsuji Nobutaro has a low-key personality and rarely accepts media interviews. An employee of Sanrio Company once revealed that industry insiders who usually have close business contacts with the company rarely see Tsuji Nobutaro himself.
Even so, Sanrio's business philosophy since its establishment is very clear.
Sanrio's official website explains his corporate philosophy
Tsuji Nobutaro has always emphasized conveying true feelings and promoting interpersonal communication. This appeal may be seen from his childhood life.
In an exclusive interview with CNN's "Music Thoughts" in 2007, Nobutaro Tsuji revealed to reporters about his living environment when he was young. Due to his mother's death at the age of 13, he was fostered at the home of his parents' sisters. The lonely childhood caused Tsuji Nobutaro to think about how to make friends.
"Do something that makes others happy, such as talking to them when they are sick, or when others have done something for you, thank them and give them some less expensive gifts to express your gratitude." This is Tsuji Shintaro's answer.
This belief is also reflected in the company name "Sanrio (Sanriot)" (meaning "building a sacred culture on a clear river") and slogan "Small Gift Big Smile".
Looking back on the 60 years that Sanrio has gone through, from beginning to end, Tsuji Nobutaro played the card of emotion.
Tsuji Nobutaro worked as a civil servant in Yamanashi Prefecture when he was young. After resigning, he opened a company selling silk and alcohol in 1960, named the "Yamabashi Silk Center". After that, he began selling groceries.
During the sale of groceries, Shintaro Tsuji discovered that the products printed with patterns sold better and had higher prices than those printed with bare products. In 1962, the company began to sell products with printed small strawberry decorations and gained great popularity. This inspired Tsuji Shintaro, and the company has since embarked on the road of character product development.
Until 1973, Yamanashi Silk Company was officially renamed "Sanrio Co., Ltd.", and the following year, the designer Shimizu Yuko produced the cartoon character Hello Kitty.
In May 2018, Tsuji Nobutaro said at a company final account briefing that over the past 50 years, Sanrio "has nothing else except the character." At present, Sanrio has launched more than 450 cartoon characters, including Hello kitty, My Melody, Big-eared Dog, Lazy Dandan and other familiar characters.
It can be seen from this that it seems that while the general public is being made of these cute cartoon characters, it seems that it is no longer that important to remember Sanrio's name as soon as possible. Hello Kitty
We are always used to calling Hello Kitty "Katty", but in fact she is the image of a little girl with British nationality. Sanrio Company also specifically clarified: "Hello Kitty is not a cat, but a little girl. She never had the image of walking with four legs, and always maintained the standing and sitting posture of a little girl."
In this regard, Christina Kawayano, a professor at the University of Hawaii who had specialized in research for Hello Kitty, said that in the 1970s, many Japanese lived in the UK, and Hello Kitty was a British little girl with a happy childhood. The character of a girl who catered to the aesthetic needs of people of that era.
Therefore, Hello kitty was welcomed by the Japanese people as soon as it was launched.
Sanrio adopts a full-scale marketing approach, from stationery to watches, phones, cameras and even food, Hello kitty begins to appear on everything that can appear.
In order to better enter the international market, in 1976, Sanrio opened its first store in San Jose, California, in the United States. In addition, Sanrio has made more attempts.
Hello kitty's third-generation designer Yuko Yamaguchi gave Hello kitty a richer look and personality, and even made her pick up one of the favorite toys of Japanese girls at that time - the teddy bear.
In the 1980s, Sanrio also tried to bring this "little girl" to the big screen and released 16 episodes of cartoons. In the cartoon, Hello kitty's character becomes more abundant. In order to adapt to the development of the Japanese idol industry at that time, Sanrio announced Kitty's "rumored boyfriend" Daniel in time.
Hello Kitty and Daniel. Image source: Cold-eyed luxury observation station
This series of operations made Shintaro Tsuji make a fortune and allowed Hello kitty to usher in the "highlight moment" of his career at the end of the 20th century. Sanrio's revenue increased from 78 billion yen in 1996 and 86 billion yen in 1997 to 121 billion yen in 1998.
In addition to creating cartoon characters, Sanrio has also developed many businesses such as gift product planning and sales, IP operation, authorization business, theme parks, etc.
According to a dynamic list of global IP revenue rankings in 2019 by Wikipedia , Hello kitty has brought Sanrio more than US$80 billion in revenue in the past 46 years. Its more than 50,000 Hello Kitty products cover more than 130 countries and regions, with an annual net profit of more than 14 billion yen.
cartoon characters "middle-aged and elderly crisis"
What is worrying is that Hello Kitty no longer seems to be Sanrio's most popular cartoon character.
Sanrio holds a general election for its cartoon characters every year. In the selection results announced on June 9 this year, according to fan votes, Hello Kitty only ranked fifth.
Sanrio star popularity selection results. Image source: Weibo @HelloKitty_Sanrio official
According to the 2019 consolidated financial report released by Sanrio on June 12, the company's sales were 55.2 billion yen (approximately RMB 3.6 billion), a decrease of 6.5% from the previous fiscal year; net profit was 191 million yen, a sharp drop of 95.1%.
Sanrio said that the reasons for the performance not meeting expectations and poor revenue performance are mainly due to the sluggish overseas business, the shrinking revenue and profits of authorized businesses in Japan, and the losses caused by the closing of the theme park due to the epidemic. Sanrio expects that the company's performance in the first half of 2020 will continue to decline.
In fact, the sluggish performance was reflected in the previous few years.
After reaching its peak in fiscal year 2013, Sanrio has reduced revenue and profits for six consecutive years, and has shown a rapid decline in the past four years. The company's operating profit fell from 6.904 billion yen in 2016 to 2.106 billion yen in 2019, a decrease of two-thirds; net profit fell from 6.475 billion yen in 2016 to 191 million yen in 2019.
46-year-old Hello Kitty ushered in his "midlife crisis".
The "middle-aged and elderly crisis" with cartoon images is actually not uncommon. Snoopy, who has been in more than 100 countries and has generated more than 30 million US dollars in profits every year, has also encountered a crisis.
This puppy, which became popular because of the United States " Peanut Comic ", is already 70 years old this year, and its peak period is undoubtedly still in the last century. It, who once appeared in Time magazine, followed Apollo 10 on the moon in the 1969 animation, and then became NASA's unofficial mascot.
However, in 2016, after serving as the "image ambassador" for the US Metropolitan Life Insurance for 31 years, Snoopy was "ruthlessly fired".
is Snoopy who endorses Metropolitan Life Insurance. Image source: Curiosity Daily
Chief Marketing Officer of Metropolitan Life Insurance said: "More than 30 years ago, people felt that insurance companies were ‘indifferent’ and ‘rejecting people thousands of miles away’."At that time, in order to make the company more "affinity", Snoopy was specially invited to be an "image ambassador" to promote business development. However, with the future, the corporate brand image needs to be "directly linked to business and cooperative relationships", so it had to "dismiss" Snoopy.
In the view of Metropolitan Life, Snoopy's image value has been much diluted compared to more than 30 years ago. Mickey Mouse, the more well-known Mickey Mouse, has been in her 80s since its birth in 1928. He has been active in people's eyes for many years, and as he grows older, as he "ages", a major crisis facing Mickey Mouse is a copyright issue.
"copyright maniac" Disney has "extended his life" twice. The US "Copyright Law" originally only granted its copyright protection period of 56 years, which means that Mickey should have been It expired in 1984.
But in 1976 and 1997, Disney and other companies successfully persuaded the US government to adjust the relevant bills twice, extending the copyright term of Mickey Mouse to 95 years, that is, 2023.
However, there are only three years left before 2023, Disney has not moved this time.
The well-known American technology blog media "Ars Technica" once quoted the view of James Grimmelmann, a copyright scholar at Cornell University School of Law, saying that unlike before, now it is based on Wikipedia, Reddit, and Facebook The Internet group represented by others has formed an anti-copyright overprotective force that cannot be ignored.
In 2012, this group defeated supporters such as Hollywood and record companies in opposing the "Suppression of Internet Piracy Act (SOPA).
Whether Mickey Mouse can continue to survive the "crisis" safely depends on how Disney will deal with it next.
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