Hello Kitty要和我們說再見?

TOKYO — At age 36, Hello Kitty may be running out of product lives.

東京——今年已經36歲的HelloKitty很可能將壽終正寢。

That is the fear of executives at the Sanrio Corporation, the Japanese company that created the cute, cartoonish white cat in 1974, and groomed her into a global marketing phenomenon worth $5 billion a year.

這正是Sanrio公司的執行官們所擔心的問題。這家日本公司於1974年創造了這個卡通貓，自面世以來，這個可愛的小白貓創造的鉅額收益約合一年50億美元。

In Japan and around the world, Hello Kitty has been licensed over the years for products that include dolls, clothes, lunch boxes, stationery, kitchenware, a Macy’s parade balloon and even an Airbus owned by Taiwanese airline EVA Airways. But amid signs that Hello Kitty’s pop-culture appeal is waning, especially at home, where sales have shrunk for a decade, the company has struggled to find its next-generation version of adorable.

多年來，Hello Kitty的授權產品涉及公仔、服裝、飯盒、文具、廚具，還進入了紐約感恩節盛大遊行，甚至臺灣長榮航空的一輛空客上也有HelloKitty。但是Hello Kitty的受歡迎程度已經出現了下降的跡象，特別是在日本本土，10年來銷量下降，使得公司必須着力於尋找新的流行卡通形象。

Sanrio’s recent flops include Spottie Dottie, a pink-frocked Dalmatian, and Pandapple, a baby panda. Even the moderately successful My Melody (a rabbit) and TuxedoSam (penguin) show no signs of achieving global Kitty-ness.

除了Hello Kitty，Sanrio公司的SpottieDottie（一隻穿着粉色外套的斑點狗）和Pandapple（蘋果熊，一隻小熊貓）這兩種產品的市場反響也非常不好。即便是相對來講比較受歡迎的MyMelody（一隻兔子）和TuxedoSam（一隻小企鵝），也很難企及Hello Kitty曾經的轟動市場效應。

“We badly need something else,” said Yuko Yamaguchi, who has been Sanrio’s top Hello Kitty designer for most of its 36 years. “Characters take a long time to develop and introduce to different markets,” Ms. Yamaguchi said. “But Kitty has been so popular it’s overshadowed all our other efforts.”

“我們真的需要一些新東西了，”Sanrio的首席Hello Kitty設計師山口裕子（Yuko Yamaguchi）說，“一個卡通形象從面世到漸漸被不同市場接受要經歷很長的過程，但是HelloKitty太紅了，都影響到了我們其他卡通形象的推廣了。”

One of Sanrio’s latest efforts is Jewelpet, a group of 33 sparkly eyed animals each with its own look. Diamond the black kitten is ladylike and decks out in pink bows. Sapphire is cool and prefers to wear blue. Sanrio’s thinking is that with so many to choose from, one has to stick.

Sanrio新近推出過一種叫寶石寵物（Jewelpet）的卡通形象，這一組動物一共有33個，眼睛閃亮，形象各異。比如叫“鑽石”的是一隻黑貓，戴粉色蝴蝶結，扮成女孩的形象。叫“藍寶石”則很愛扮酷，喜歡穿藍色衣服。Sanrio考慮有這麼一組龐大的卡通形象，各類人總能在當中找到自己喜歡的。

A Sanrio savior would arrive not a moment too soon.

但是Sanrio的救世主卻不會這麼快就誕生的。

In a closely watched ranking of Japan’s most popular characters, compiled each year using sales data by the Tokyo-based research firm Character Databank, Hello Kitty lost her long-held spot as Japan’s top-grossing character in 2002 and has never recovered.

在由東京的調查公司Character Databank完成的權威市場調查中，Hello Kitty自從2002年從日本最暢銷卡通形象的寶座上下來之後，就再也沒有重返巔峯過了。

In the latest survey, released this month, Kitty ranked a distant third, behind the leader, Anpanman, a character that is based on a Japanese jam-filled pastry and is produced by Nippon Television. The second spot is still held by the venerable game and animation brand Pokémon, owned by Nintendo.

本月公佈的最新調查結果顯示，Hello Kitty僅排名第三，被前兩名遠遠甩下。排名第一的是麪包超人，由日本電視臺推出，麪包超人的形象是由日本的一種果醬麪糰而來。排第二的則是任天堂出品的經久不衰的遊戲動畫人物皮卡丘。

Sanrio is also being usurped by smaller, nimbler rivals. The formerly little-known stationery maker San-X has scored two huge hits in Japan with its panda character, Tarepanda, and its bear, Rilakkuma — which has charged up the Character Databank charts, ranking fifth in the latest survey.

而且Sanrio還面對着來自小公司的競爭。San-X之前只是個默默無名的文具生產商，但是最近他們推出的兩個新卡通形象大受追捧，這便是趴趴熊（Tarepanda）和輕鬆小熊（Rilakkuma），其中輕鬆小熊在CharacterDatabank公佈的調查中名列最受歡迎卡通形象第五位。

“The character business is basically a wide-open field,” Hikaru Takayama, chief executive of Fanworks, an animation and character consultancy here, said at a recent convention of the Tokyo Contents Market. “It all comes down to management.”

日本角色設定工作室（Fanworks）是一個製作並提供諮詢意見的卡通形象公司，其首席執行官高山光（Hikaru Takayama）在東京Contents Market最近的一次會議上說：“卡通人物市場其實是一個非常開放的領域，它的成功與否歸根結底取決於如何管理。”

“Going forward, perhaps smaller companies will be quicker to come out with new ideas,” Mr. Takayama said. “Characters can develop into manga, anime, potentially a big business,” he said, referring to the popular Japanese comic book and animation art forms.

“這樣的話，也許小規模的企業能更快的醞釀出新的點子，”高山先生以日本風靡的漫畫書和動畫產業爲例，說，“卡通形象可以通過漫畫、動畫來塑造，這是一個存在着巨大潛力的市場。”

Sanrio’s sales, which come from products as well as licensing, have reflected Kitty’s fading fortunes, shrinking for 10 consecutive years since 1999. The company’s overall sales in Japan fell 3.3 percent in the 12 months ending in March, Sanrio announced Friday, as both licensing and sales of good slumped. Hello Kitty fatigue is hitting Japan first, and hard, the company indicated.

自1999年以來，Sanrio公司通過Hello Kitty的獲利就一直在減少，包括直接的產品銷售，也包括公司授權的衍生商品。上週五Sanrio通報，在截止到3月的過去12個月裏，公司在日本的總銷售額下降了3.3個百分點，也是包括直接的產品銷售和授權商品獲利，都大幅縮水。公司稱，Hello Kitty首先在日本出現了市場疲軟，而且是嚴重的疲軟。

But a one-time 28 percent jump in overseas sales — which Sanrio attributed to an accounting change, as well as several big contracts overseas tied to Hello Kitty’s 35th birthday celebrations — helped the company swing back to a net profit of 4.37 billion yen, in contrast to a loss of 1.50 billion yen the previous year.

不過，Hello Kitty的海外銷售額卻一度躍增了28%，使得Sanrio公司去年的淨利潤達到了43.7億日元，遠好過前年的15億日元的年度赤字。Sanrio公司認爲，海外市場收益的暴增，主要原因有二，一是因爲公司會計變更，二是因爲去年是HelloKitty的35歲生日，這一慶典爲公司贏得了很多海外的合同。

Sanrio now relies on overseas sales for 30 percent of its revenue, the company’s executive director, Susumu Emori, said Friday. But Mr. Emori was cautious about Sanrio’s future overseas prospects. “The last quarter was extraordinary, and we expect both sales and profit to fall this year,” he said.

執行部主任江守進（Susumu Emori）上週五指出，Sanrio現在有三成的收入要依靠海外市場，但是江守對Sanrio未來的海外市場前景表示擔憂。“過去一個季度的情況非常特殊，而我們預計今年的銷售額和利潤都會下降。”他說。

Analysts say part of the problem is that Sanrio has oversold Hello Kitty, which appears on products as various as T-shirts, toilet paper and toasters. Sanrio was recently forced to write off the 500 million yen in debt held by Harmony Land, one of its two character theme parks in Japan, after a falloff in visitors, although the park remains open.

分析家認爲，導致目前困難局面的原因之一就是Sanrio對Hello Kitty的“過度開發”，像是T恤、廁紙乃至多士爐等產品都屢見不鮮。Sanrio公司最近被迫要消除Hello Kitty和諧樂園的5億日元的債務，儘管依舊保持公園開放。和諧樂園是日本最大的兩個卡通主題樂園之一，但近來遊客量已經減少。

“Sanrio was initially very careful in making sure the Hello Kitty phenomenon didn’t get out of hand,” said Naohiro Shichijo, an associate professor in creative industries at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies in Tokyo. “That’s the unspoken rule of the character business: you can’t let a character get too wildly popular all at once,” he said. “You want to go for longevity.”

早稻田高級研究所的副教授七丈直弘（NaohiroShichijo）一直從事創造性產業的研究，他指出：“Sanrio一開始非常謹慎，以確保Hello Kitty的市場效應在自己控制範圍內。這也是卡通行業的一種潛規則：要想一種卡通形象長盛不衰，就不能讓它一下子太過大紅大紫。”

Hello Kitty, introduced on a vinyl coin purse in 1974, became an instant phenomenon in Japan, and sales at Sanrio grew sevenfold in the cat’s first three years. But even then Sanrio’s founder and president, Shintaro Tsuji, expressed nervousness that consumers would burn out on the brand. Sanrio’s sales tapered off in the late 1970s, and then again in the mid-1990s when Japan entered a long economic slump.

1974年，Hello Kitty的形象最初出現在塑料錢包上，轉瞬之間就風靡全日本。面世的頭三年，Sanrio公司的銷售額增加了7倍。Sanrio的創始人兼主席辻信太郎（Shintaro Tsuji）當時就很擔心，怕消費者的熱情來也快去也快。70年代末，Sanrio的銷售額曾一度跌至低谷，而到了日本經濟衰退的90年代中期，其銷售額又再次下滑。

But around 2000, Kitty surprised Sanrio by rebounding in a big way, with Hollywood stars wearing the cat on T-shirts and carrying Hello Kitty bags.

但在2000年左右，Hello Kitty又出現了令Sanrio都感到意外的強勢反彈，當時好萊塢的明星也穿着Hello Kitty的T恤，用印着Hello Kitty的包。

“But when you have a boom, you have a bust,” said Mr. Shichijo, the professor. “People get sick of it. Now Sanrio’s in trouble.”

“但是，正所謂盛極必衰，”七丈教授說，“人們總會厭倦它的。現在的Sanrio就很困難了。”

Sanrio has tried to keep Hello Kitty up to the times: sensing a move away from Japan’s love affair with the cute, or “kawaii” aesthetic, it has pushed an edgier look for the cat in the last three years, using as much black as pink.

Sanrio也嘗試過讓Hello Kitty跟上時代潮流，比如說，在過去三年裏，Sanrio在設計時已經減少了一些日本人所偏愛的“卡哇伊”的成分，多用黑色，就像以往使用粉色一樣頻繁，這樣就使得Kitty貓的形象更加出位。

Still, a sense of crisis is evident at the Tokyo offices of Sanrio, where 30 designers, led by Ms. Yamaguchi, are charged with developing new characters. At periodic product meetings, each designer presents as many as 20 characters for consideration by Ms. Yamaguchi. Of those, perhaps a dozen are chosen for trial sales at a pilot Sanrio store in Tokyo.

但是Sanrio的東京辦公處仍然瀰漫着危機四伏的氣息。以山口爲首的30人的設計團隊，正在努力開發新的卡通形象。在例會上，每個設計師都會提交多達20個卡通形象，供山口篩選。這當中可能會選出12個，在Sanrio位於東京的試點商店進行銷售，測試市場反應。

These days, designers are also urged to make sure their characters work across multiple media — a lesson Sanrio learned the hard way with Hello Kitty. Because Kitty had no mouth, it was difficult for the cat to break into television animation, depriving Sanrio of a lucrative source of revenue.

Sanrio還要求設計者們構思新形象時，能夠確保新形象可以通過多種媒體進行推廣——這是Sanrio在Hello Kitty身上吸取的教訓。Kitty貓沒有嘴巴，不能說話，也就與電視動畫無緣，從而斷了Sanrio公司的一條重要財路

When the company created a talking Kitty for a pilot cartoon series, it set off a fury among fans loyal to the cat’s mouthless look, Ms. Yamaguchi said.

Sanrio公司當年也試過讓Kitty貓說話，並搬上了電視，據山口說，這一舉動引發了廣大Kitty粉絲的不滿，因爲他們已經接受了沒有嘴巴的Kitty的形象了。

And though Sanrio goes to great length to create back stories for its characters — Kitty, for example, was born in London and likes to eat cookies — that biography is not compelling enough to draw many fans, according to analysts, who cite weak characterization as a drawback in Sanrio’s product lines.

儘管Sanrio也絞盡腦汁爲卡通人物編了一系列背景故事，比如說，他們爲Kitty貓定位的是一隻生於倫敦、愛吃曲奇餅的貓，但是這些故事並不精彩，也沒有如願拉來大批粉絲。分析家認爲，卡通形象塑造缺乏個性，是Sanrio生產商品時的缺點之一。

Characters developed by Walt Disney, in contrast, typically make their debuts in blockbuster movies that propel them to fame and provide a springboard for further storytelling. The hit Disney animated film “Lilo & Stitch,” for example, which featured a Hawaiian girl and an alien friend, made a successful transition to a television series, all the while bringing merchandising and licensing income to Disney.

與此形成鮮明對比的是沃爾特·迪斯尼塑造的卡通形象。迪斯尼的卡通人物都是通過大片和觀衆見面，形成轟動效應，這之後再發展後續劇情。著名電影《星際寶貝》就是個很好的例子。電影講述了一個夏威夷的女孩和她的外星人朋友的故事，這個故事後來成功的排成電視動畫劇集，並且迪斯尼通過授權其他衍生商品，獲取了鉅額利潤。

In fact, “Lilo & Stitch” has been so popular even in Japan that the series has been localized — with a Japanese girl named Yuna in place of Lilo and Okinawa replacing the Hawaiian setting.

而且《星際寶貝》在日本也取得了巨大成功，甚至在日本播出的動畫劇集把主人公換成了日本女孩尤娜（Yuna），故事背景也換成了沖繩，以迎合本土觀衆。

Sanrio’s designers are also told to aim their new characters at children in elementary school or younger — even if much of the marketing, especially in Japan, will be aimed at older consumers. When younger children embrace a character, many tend to remain fans even later in life, said Miyuki Okumura, the lead designer behind the Jewelpet series. “If a character captures the heart of a little girl, she’s going to love that character into her teens, at least,” Ms. Okumura said. “Then when she has children, she’ll again buy that character for them,” she said. “That’s what we’re aiming for.”

Sanrio要求設計師們將受衆集中在小學生甚至更低齡兒童身上——儘管日本的主要消費羣體比他們要年長。寶石寵物系列的首席設計師奧村美雪（Miyuki Orumura）認爲，年幼的孩子如果喜歡某個卡通形象，以後也會一直喜歡下去。“如果一個人小女孩的時候喜歡上某個卡通形象，她至少直到少女時代也會對這個形象厚愛有加的。”奧村說道，“等她有了孩子，她還會給自己的孩子買同樣的卡通產品，而這正是我們所希望的。”