Mickey Mouse vs. Hello Kitty

So, any of you out there who live in these United States are aware of these two icons of kitschery: Mickey Mouse, the squeaky leader of the Disney motley crew, and Hello Kitty, the sweet, tiny featured mistress of the Sanrio collection. My question to you--how did Hello Kitty get where she is (e.g., made into diamond necklaces that celebrities wear) without spending half as much time/money pandering to the world that Mickey has? Well...it is an interesting question indeed.

One thing you may not know is that Hello Kitty, My Melody, Chococat, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, Keroppi, and Badtz-Maru have a theme park in Oita, Japan AND they also have an all indoor park near Tokyo. These definitely serve to increase the wonder associated with the Sanrio menagerie in Japan, but do not explain the popularity of Hello Kitty in particular worldwide.

Here's my thinking: Mickey Mouse is, in some ways, too corporate. Disney is a behemoth marketing an entire range of assets the world over, of which Mickey is the leading edge of the wedge. They may be disciplined in the way they manage Mickey, with a character bible and do's and don't's regarding what he may be seen doing and who he may be seen doing it with--but in some ways he's gotten too slick. His secret to timeless appeal is trotting out his origins every few years, to remind people that he wasn't always the Mickey we see today.

In contrast, Hello Kitty is exotic and in some ways unexpected. First, she's from Japan--so how cool is that? Second she is a blank slate...in fact, other than their facial expressions, to Americans the entire Sanrio group are blank slates--which means we can project upon them whatever characteristics we like, pick them for their colors, or even just for the products Sanrio has made in support of them. And given their open, void expressions, we can decide exactly what they're thinking at any given moment. As opposed to Mickey and the Disney lot, Sanrio characters are pliable to our own interpretations. We can endow them with whatever personalities we want them to have.

Not unlike Beanie Babies, but with more staying power because of the licensing possibilities, Sanrio's characters can be seen on clothing, toys, jewelry, gegaws, everything--the world over. Of course, so can Disney's....but it seems so much more organic in the case of Hello Kitty. She seems intrinsically more appealing...even if the Sanrio stores in the mall are cramped and smell unabashedly of plastic versus the carefully crafted merchandising of Disney. I think it's the individual versus the conglomerate--Hello Kitty appeals on an individual basis; she is who you want her to be, with just a touch of the exotic, whereas Mickey is pretty much a pre-packaged experience, a kind of surrogate for Walt Disney and thus the symbol of the corporation; bigger than the individual, and when you invest in Mickey, you're knowingly investing in the Disney empire.

As far as branding goes, I think there is a level of serendipity on both fronts here. Mickey has certainly stood the test of time, and bravo to Disney for keeping him and the rest of the character catalog relevant over time. In contrast, hooray for Sanrio for keeping their characters relatively unchanged over time--enabling each new generation to imprint them with whatever personality those blank but friendly stares evoke in our hearts.

Hmmm....I wonder what would happen if Disney bought Sanrio? It's not such a small world, after all.