The Hello Kitty phone is coming . . . your daughter will want one
Lilly Peel
The Times (UK)
May 20, 2008
Mobile phones
branded with the popular children’s character Hello
Kitty are due to hit the high street in July, prompting
parental fears over the marketing of phones at the
youngest in society.
Health fears persist about mobile phone use by children,
with an authoritative report in 2005 concluding that 9
to 14-year-olds should make only short, essential calls.
The report by Sir William Stewart said that children
under 8 should not use mobile phones at all.
Products with Hello Kitty cartoon cat images are aimed
at children as young as five. Parenting experts said
last night that children would pressurise adults to buy
the phone, which can be bought online for $599 (£310),
as a fashion accessory.
Sue Palmer, author of Detoxing Childhood, which gives
advice to parents on how to steer children through the
problems of growing up, said that bringing a Hello Kitty
phone on to the market was “very irresponsible”. She
said: “A Hello Kitty phone would concern me
considerably. The Hello Kitty website is aimed at 6 to
7-year-olds. The products are very pink and very
attractive to young girls. What they are doing is
looking for a new market and this is the thing I find so
offensive. They need a new market and they are
exploiting children.”
Two years ago Disney announced plans for a Mickey Mouse
mobile phone service aimed at 8 to 14-year-olds, only to
scrap the idea, citing an “adverse retail environment”.
The so-called Teddyphone, a phone in the shape of a
teddy aimed at 4-year-olds and programmed to only call
four numbers, also flopped.
In 2005 Sir William Stewart, then chairman of the Health
Protection Agency and the National Radiological
Protection Board, recommended that 9 to 14-year-olds
should make only short, essential calls, use text
messaging as far as possible and should have
low-emission models. He said that those who were younger
should never use them.
The British company Comment Retail Service, which has
struck a deal with Sanrio to become the exclusive
licence holder in Britain and Ireland for Hello Kitty
phones, said that the phones were not going to be
marketed at young children. Caroline Preston, sales
director, said: “There’s definitely a fan base that you
associate with youngsters and young teenagers.” She said
that the phones were not targeted at children and would
appeal to women in their twenties and thirties.
“Sanrio has been attempting to broaden their appeal out
of the 10 to 12-year-old sector. She [Hello Kitty] has
grown up and become more urban. If the market was for 5
to 15-year-olds we wouldn’t have become involved. Hello
Kitty has mass market appeal. The price point and
functional-ity is aimed at adults.”
The cat already features on clothes in Top Shop and H&M
and adorns an estimated 22,000 products globally.
Taiwan’s second-largest airline, Eva Air, has a Hello
Kitty branded aircraft, with the exterior decked with
the Hello Kitty theme.
Cash in the Kitty
— Hello Kitty is the most successful of several
characters produced by Sanrio and decorates stationery,
school supplies and gifts. Other characters include
Pochacco, the athletic puppy, and Charmmy Kitty, another
cat
— The company was founded in 1960 and first began
selling products in the West in 1976 Sanrio currently
produces more than 2,500 Hello Kitty-branded objects.
There are 4,000 Hello Kitty outlets in the US alone
selling everything from Hello Kitty fire extinguishers
to toasters
— One of the most expensive products is a laptop
computer costing just over £1,000
— According to her biography Hello Kitty was born on on
November 1, 1974, and lives with her parents and her
twin sister Mimmy. She weighs “the same as three apples”
and is the height of five. Her interests include “baking
yummy cookies” and “making lots of friends”
— Sanrio Puroland theme park in Tokyo is dedicated to
Hello Kitty and her fellow toys