In Japan, Sanrio opened Club KT Shibuya, a new store for Hello Kitty merchandise. But this isn’t your typical Sanrio shop.
“Teenagers want to experience club culture for themselves, but they are not allowed to go into places where alcohol is served. Here they can experience club culture,” Tohmatsu [spokesman for Sanrio] told AFP.
It’s a neat idea because it’s basically the club culture inside a retail place which allows the younger generation to experience some of what their older siblings do. If they started some serious techno/trance tracks in that store, I’d be somewhat curious if you’d see some blue pills being passed around that had the Hello Kitty emblem stamped on it.
It looks like Hello Kitty is going to a new level. Since cute is meeting this side of cool, I’m half expecting the Sanrio multi-million dollar brand to start spinning with the likes of Q-bert and Daft Punk at some point. All jesting aside, I think this is totally a smart marketing play by Sanrio. In the States, one of the stores that pushes some cute things along to teenagers happens to be Hot Topic. And in the same type of mannerisms, cool meets cute. Hot Topic is a little more emo and punk styles but you get the idea.
