FEATURES
How Japan’s youngest CEO transformed Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty, arguably Japan’s best loved creation, is celebrating her 50th anniversary.
But all has not always been well at Sanrio, the Japanese company behind the character. The business has been on a spectacular journey of financial peaks and valleys.
Hello Kitty has been ranked the second-highest grossing media franchise in the world behind Pokémon, and ahead of the likes of Mickey Mouse and Star Wars.
Underscoring her global fame, Britain’s King Charles wished her a happy birthday during the state visit to the UK by Japan’s Emperor and Empress in June.
In recent years though Sanrio had been struggling to make money, as interest in Hello Kitty waned.
Two previous surges in Sanrio sales, in 1999 and 2014, were both driven by the character’s popularity. But these jumps in demand for the firm’s products were not sustainable, says Yasuki Yoshioka of investment company SMBC Nikko.
“In the past, its performance had many ups and downs, as if it was on a rollercoaster ride,” Mr Yoshioka says.
Tomokuni Tsuji took over the top job at Sanrio four years ago
Then, in 2020, Tomokuni Tsuji inherited the role as Sanrio’s boss.
He is the grandson of the firm’s founder, Shintaro Tsuji, and was just 31 at the time, making him the youngest chief executive of a listed Japanese company.
His grandfather then became Sanrio’s chairman.
Under the younger Mr Tsuji’s leadership, Sanrio changed its marketing strategy of its stable of other characters.
“It is not about lowering Hello Kitty’s popularity but it is about boosting others’ recognition,” he says.
This resulted in Hello Kitty losing the position of Sanrio’s most popular character.
According to a poll of customers, that spot is now held by Cinnamoroll – a blue-eyed white puppy with pink cheeks, long ears and a tail that looks like a Cinnamon roll.
Sanrio is also no longer just about cute characters.
If Hello Kitty is Japan’s ambassador of cute, then angry red panda Aggressive Retsuko – or Aggretsuko – channels the frustrations of an ordinary working woman.
The character, which is popular among Gen Zers, first appeared in a cartoon series on Japan’s TBS Television before it became a global hit on Netflix.
Another unconventional character is Gudetama, or “lazy egg”, who is living with depression and fires out cold one-liners that reflect dark realities of life.
Sanrio is also no longer just about cute characters
As well as diversifying its characters, Sanrio boosted its overseas marketing and is now tackling counterfeits more rigorously.
“We are now using artificial intelligence to detect fake products and to make removal requests,” says Mr Tsuji.
For its marketing strategy, collaborations with major brands – including Starbucks, Crocs and the LA Dodgers baseball team – have been key, he added.
“In addition to our own promotion, by collaborating with global brands, we are trying to have our characters in the market throughout the year without many breaks.”
Hello Kitty collaborated with the LA Dodgers, home to Japanese baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani
In a society that puts so much emphasis on seniority, Mr Tsuji’s surname was crucial to his ability to make major changes at Sanrio.
Almost a quarter of listed companies in Japan, like car makers Toyota and Suzuki and camera firm Canon, are managed by members of the family that founded them.
The reason is cultural, according to Professor Hokuto Dazai of Nagoya University of Commerce and Business.
In Japan, home to the world’s oldest continuous monarchy, “there is strong recognition of families and family businesses,” he says.
The master-servant relationship from the samurai period has transitioned into the relationship between founding families and their employees, and “historically commoners never fought over the top job”.
“It is also because Japan has a smaller pool of professional executives to choose from,” says Professor Dazai.
“Firms tend to look for their next boss internally, including founding family members.”
King Charles wished Hello Kitty a happy birthday during the Japanese Emperor’s state visit
Still, “it would be a lie if I said there was no pushback” from other managers and employees in the company, Mr Tsuji says.
He also says he clashed with his grandfather over how to run the company.
“But one day I realised that I was being arrogant, trying to convince someone 60 years senior,” he says.
“After about a year, my grandfather told me to run the company as I see fit – that he will leave it up to me.”
The new boss’s revamp of the business has been paying off so far.
Within two years of the younger Tsuji becoming chief executive, Sanrio was profitable again, in what analyst Mr Yoshioka calls “a beautiful V-shaped recovery”.
Its share price has risen tenfold since 2020 and the company now has a stock market valuation of more than a trillion yen ($6.5bn; £5bn).
Hello Kitty is no longer the most popular Sanrio character
Away from the boardroom and stock market, there was also an intriguing incident earlier this year.
While Hello Kitty’s true identity is relatively well-known in Japan, some overseas fans were shocked by comments from a Sanrio executive in July.
Speaking on US television, retail business development director Jill Koch told viewers that “Hello Kitty is not a cat” and is in fact a British schoolgirl.
Her comments sparked a flurry of social media posts, with fans expressing their shock and confusion about the revelation.
“Hello Kitty is Hello Kitty and she can be whoever you want her to be – she can be your sister, your mother, it can be another you,” Mr Tsuji says.
Pushed on whether he has any idea why his grandfather decided not to make her Japanese, Mr Tsuji concludes: “London is an amazing city and it was the envy of many Japanese girls, so that may be one of the reasons they decided that she’s from London.”
It may not be the definitive answer her fans are looking for – but after all, Hello Kitty was created 14 years before the younger Tsuji was even born. Half a century since her creation, it is possible that the beloved character’s origin story will continue to be shrouded in mystery for years to come.
– Mariko Oi
(BBC News)
FEATURES
Draft proposed for “North-East People’s Action Plan”
FEATURES
The viral fashion show by slum children that is wowing India
A video of a fashion shoot in India has gone viral and unexpectedly turned a group of underprivileged school children into local celebrities.
The footage shows the children, most of them girls between the ages of 12 and 17, dressed in red and gold outfits fashioned from discarded clothes.
The teenagers designed and tailored the outfits and also doubled up as models to showcase their creations, with the grubby walls and terraces of the slum providing the backdrop for their ramp walk.
The video was filmed and edited by a 15-year-old boy.
The girls chose accessories by watching fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s Instagram videos
The video first appeared earlier this month on the Instagram page of Innovation for Change, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in the city of Lucknow.
The charity works with about 400 children from the city’s slums, providing them free food, education and job skills. The children featured in the shoot are students of this NGO.
Mehak Kannojia, one of the models in the video, told the BBC that she and her fellow students closely followed the sartorial choices of Bollywood actresses on Instagram and often duplicated some of their outfits for themselves.
“This time, we decided to pool our resources and worked as a group,” the 16-year-old said.
For their project, they chose wisely – a campaign by Sabyasachi Mukherjee, one of India’s top fashion designers who has dressed Bollywood celebrities, Hollywood actresses and billionaires. In 2018, Kim Kardashian wore his sequinned red sari for a Vogue shoot.
Mukherjee is also known as the “king of weddings” in India. He has dressed thousands of brides, including Bollywood celebrities such as Anushka Sharma and Deepika Padukone. Priyanka Chopra married Nick Jonas in a stunning red Sabyasachi outfit.
The girls said they stitched about a dozen outfits in three-four days
Mehak said their project, called Yeh laal rang (the colour red), was inspired by the designer’s heritage bridal collection.
“We sifted through the clothes that had come to us in donation and picked out all the red items. Then we zeroed in on the outfits we wanted to make and began putting them together.”
It was intense work – the girls stitched about a dozen outfits in three-four days but, Mehak says, they had “great fun doing it”.
For the ramp walk, Mehak says they studied the models carefully in Sabyasachi videos and copied their moves.
“Just like his models, some of us wore sunglasses, one drank from a sipper with a straw, while another walked carrying a cloth bundle under her arm.”
Some of it, Mehak says, came together organically. “At one point in the shoot, I was supposed to laugh. At that moment, someone said something funny and I just burst out laughing.”
The outfits were fashioned from donated clothes
It was an ambitious project, but the result has won hearts in India. Put together on a shoestring budget with donated clothes, the video went viral after Mukherjee reposted it on his Instagram feed with a heart emoji.
The campaign won widespread praise, with many on social media comparing their work to that of professionals.
The viral video has brought enormous attention to the charity and its school has been visited by several TV channels, some of the children were invited to participate in shows on popular FM radio stations and Bollywood actress Tamannah Bhatia visited them to accept a scarf from the children.
The response, Mehak says, has been “totally unexpected”.
“It feels like a dream come true. All my friends are sharing the video and saying ‘you’ve become famous’. My parents were full of joy when they heard about all the attention we are getting.
“We are feeling wonderful. Now we have only one dream left – to meet Sabyasachi.”
The fashion shoot has won widespread praise in India
The shoot, however, also received criticism, with some wondering if showing young girls dressed as brides could encouraged child marriage in a country where millions of girls are still married off by their families before they turn 18 – the legal age.
The Innovation for Change addressed the concern in a post on Instagram, saying they had no intention to encourage child marriage.
“Our aim is not to promote child marriage in any way. Today, these girls are able to do something like this by fighting against such ideas and restrictions. Please appreciate them, otherwise the morale of these children will fall.”
(BBC News)
FEATURES
How hoax bomb threats are hurting air travel in India
A dramatic and unprecedented surge in hoax bomb threats targeting Indian airlines is wreaking havoc on flight schedules, diverting planes and causing widespread disruptions.
A video posted on social media last week showed passengers draped in woollens, walking down the icy ladder of an Air India plane into the frigid air of Iqaluit, a remote city in Canada.
The 211 passengers on the Boeing 777, originally en route from Mumbai to Chicago, had been diverted early on 15 October due to a bomb threat.
“We have been stuck at the airport since 5am with 200 passengers… We have no idea what’s happening or what we are supposed to do next… We are completely stranded,” Harit Sachdeva, a passenger, posted on social media. He praised the “kind airport staff” and alleged Air India was not doing enough to inform the passengers.
Mr Sachdeva’s post captured the frustration and anxiety of passengers diverted to an unknown, remote destination. Hours later, a Canadian Air Force plane ended their ordeal by ferrying the stranded passengers to Chicago. Air India confirmed that the flight had been diverted to Iqaluit due to a “security threat posted online”.
The threat was false, mirroring scores of similar hoaxes targeting India’s airlines so far this year. Last week alone, there were at least 90 threats, resulting in diversions, cancellations and delays. In June, 41 airports received hoax bomb threats via email in a single day, prompting heightened security.
A Frankfurt-bound Vistara plane was diverted to Turkey after a bomb threat in September
For context, between 2014 and 2017, authorities recorded 120 bomb hoax alerts at airports, with nearly half directed at Delhi and Mumbai, the country’s largest airports. This underscores the recurring nature of such threats in recent years, but this year’s surge has been sensational.
“I am deeply concerned over the recent disruptive acts targeting Indian airlines, affecting domestic and international operations. Such mischievous and unlawful actions are a matter of grave concern. I condemn attempts to compromise safety, security and operational integrity of our aviation sector,” federal aviation minister, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, said.
So what is going on?
Hoax bomb threats targeting airlines are often linked to malicious intent, attention-seeking, mental health issues, disruption of business operations or a prank, experts say. In 2018, a rash of jokes about bombs by airplane passengers in Indonesia led to flight disruptions. Even fliers have proved to be culprits: last year, a frustrated passenger tried to delay a SpiceJet flight by calling in a bomb hoax alert after missing his check-in at an airport in India’s Bihar.
These hoaxes end up wreaking havoc in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. More than 150 million passengers flew domestically in India last year, according to the civil aviation ministry. More than 3,000 flights arrive and depart every day in the country from more than 150 operational airports, including 33 international airports.
Last week’s hoaxes peaked even as India’s airlines carried a record 484,263 passengers on a single day, 14 October. India has just under 700 commercial passenger planes in service, and an order backlog of more than 1,700 planes, according to Rob Morris of Cirium, a consultancy. “All this would certainly render India the fastest growing commercial aircraft market today,” says Mr Morris.
Bomb threats to airlines inconvenience passengers, as seen with these travellers boarding another Vistara flight from Turkey
Consider the consequences of a bomb threat alert on an airline.
If the plane is in the air, it must divert to the nearest airport – like the Air India flight that diverted last week to Canada or a Frankfurt-bound Vistara flight from Mumbai that diverted to Turkey in September. Some involve fighter jets to be scrambled to escort planes reporting threats like it happened with a Heathrow-bound Air India flight over Norfolk and a Singapore-bound Air India Express last week.
Once on the ground, passengers disembark, and all baggage and cargo and catering undergo thorough searches. This process can take several hours, and often the same crew cannot continue flying due to duty hour limitations. As a result, a replacement crew must be arranged, further prolonging the delay.
“All of this has significant cost and network implications. Every diverted or delayed flight incurs substantial expenses, as grounded aircraft become money-losing assets. Delays lead to cancellations, and schedules are thrown off balance.” says Sidharath Kapur, an independent aviation expert.
The dramatic rise in bomb threats on social media from anonymous accounts has complicated efforts to identify perpetrators. The motives remain unclear, as does whether the threats come from a single individual, a group, or are simply copycat acts.
More than 150 million passengers flew domestically in India last year
Last week, Indian authorities arrested a 17-year-old school dropout for creating a social media account to issue such threats. His motivations remain unclear, but he is believed to have targeted four flights – three international – resulting in two delays, one diversion and one cancellation. Investigators suspect that some posts may have originated from London and Germany after tracing IP addresses.
Clearly, tracking down hoaxers presents a significant challenge. While Indian law mandates life imprisonment for threats to airport safety or service disruption, this punishment is too severe for hoax calls and would likely not withstand legal scrutiny. Reports suggest the government is considering placing offenders on a no-fly list and introducing new laws that could impose a five-year prison term.
Ultimately, such hoax threats can cause serious anxiety for passengers. “My aunt called to ask if she should take her booked flight given these threats. ‘Should I take a train?’ she asked. I told her, ‘Please continue to fly’,” says an aviation consultant, who preferred to remain unnamed. The threats continue to disrupt lives and sow fear.
– Soutik Biswas
(BBC News)
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