Brand Strategy of Sanrio
Introduction
In the world of business, competition between different brands is intense. And one of the biggest challenges is to be highly noticeable among others. According to (2006) having a strong brand strategy raises the knowledge of the consumers about a company and its products and services, in a way in which it establishes positive feelings and reactions towards the company.
In the Brand ID Framework, Brand Strategy is the first and foremost step any company must make. According to (2005) Brand Strategy has two purposes, first is to know and comprehend the important aspects of the business of the company such as the marketplace and consumers. Second is to use the insights and understandings in order to outline the proper brand strategy. In addition he stated that it is the most crucial part of the framework because it is the foundation of the consecutive branding activities, it also seizes “brand chaos” and provides essential input in order line up the creative and management processes.
Brand Strategy has important elements, according to the (2003) these elements are targeting, values and proposition. In targeting, the company must analyze which consumers provide the most value and therefore gains more profit for the company. In Values, in order to maximize the effects of the products upon consumers, it is important to examine the status of the usage of the products highlighting specifically the advantages the customers’ experience. And proposition, in which the company communicates to the consumers via customer service, availability and price.
Sanrio Co. Ltd.
According to the company’s history Sanrio is a distributor and designer of character-based stationary, gifts and school supplies. It was founded by Mr. Shintaro Tsuji in 1960; the company is based in Tokyo. ( 2006) The most popular character of Sanrio is Hello Kitty, it also has other popular characters such as The Little Twin Stars, My Melody, Kerropi, Tuxedo Sum, Cinnamonroll and many more. Aside from the characters created and marketed. It also ventured into movie production and publishing. The company also has Hello Kitty restaurants in Japan. Sanrio also has another company branch called Kokoro Company Ltd. That creates animatronics. And it also has two theme parks in Japan namely the Sanrio Puroland and Harmonyland. (2006)
There is a number of branding strategy used in different businesses; The Sanrio Co. Ltd. uses the House of Brands Strategy. According to (2003) House of Brands is individual brand names are being used in marketing different products. Delta flow discusses that House of Brand Strategy allows the corporation to govern a product area by creating a successful brand that stands for just a single product. The company created different stationary characters that established its own brand such as Hello Kitty and Little Twin Stars. Each of the characters created by the Sanrio Co. Ltd. has established its own identity and brand among children as well as adults around the world. For over four decades Sanrio Co. Ltd. managed to be successful in creating a specific character and marketing it. Like in the case of Hello Kitty, the corporation developed the character and it became one of the most popular characters in the whole world, aside from stationeries, the hello kitty brand has its own line of bags, accessories, apparels, toys, movies and even restaurants. The company established the Hello Kitty brand successfully around the world.
Aside from Hello Kitty, the Sanrio Co. Ltd. also created new brand of characters such as the Little Twin Stars, Kerropi and Cinnamonroll which also established a brand name for each. Every character that Sanrio created also has a line of bags, accessories and apparels and is also marketed separately. That is why in a Sanrio Store, as well as their website the company sells bags, clothes, apparels and even appliances under the different characters or brands that Sanrio had developed over the past years.
The company was able to dominate the Japanese character-based products by creating different characters to rival the established ones such as Hello Kitty. The company is also reaping the advantages of employing the House of Brand Strategy, and one of those is the sales of other characters wasn’t affected an example is when the rights of the baby unicorn character named Unico was shifted to the own company of the creator, the animated movie in which Unico starred together with other Sanrio characters still managed to be sold and marketed. Moreover, the sales of one of the characters do not have an effect on the sales of others. The company is very successful in using the House Brand Strategy. They established not just one characters but a number of characters having their own specific brands and labels. And the company is so successful; they created two theme parks in Japan based on the different Sanrio characters.
Although the strategy has done great advantages in the company, it also has slight disadvantages. As mentioned earlier, marketing of each brand takes a great amount of time, money and effort. With a wide range of characters of Sanrio, the company was not able to market the other characters as mush as Hello Kitty, take for instance the characters Kerropi and Tuxedo Sum, the shelf space for these two characters are not as big as Hello Kitty and Cinnamonroll. There are fewer bags, accessories and apparels being marketed under these two brands. In other countries consumers are not even familiar with these two characters.
The marketing strategy for these two characters is not as aggressive as that of Hello Kitty. Older characters that did not generate that much profit are often removed to pave way to new characters. The greatest challenge for Sanrio is to established success for all their characters and will be able to reach the pinnacle of success that their most popular brand Hello Kitty has achieved and is still holding on.
In an interview conducted by (2003) with Donna Suzuki the product designer of Sanrio, San Francisco, the designer described the company’s mascot Hello Kitty as timeless, which is a huge factor why the company is so successful around the world. She said that “the kids that loved her as kids are now adults and the love for her is still in their hearts. As they become mothers they introduce their little ones to Hello Kitty and the cycle begins again.” And because of that strength the company was able to create a house of brands that transcend for decades. Aside from a timeless character, strength of the company is they create their designs depending on the season and the product that sells. The company considers a lot of factors before releasing a design for a product, that is the reason their products are such a hit in the market. Furthermore, (2005) discussed that the cute appearance of Hello Kitty has led to the success of Sanrio all over the world. In marketing a product which targets young girls having a cute mascot to represent the company, just like in the case of Hello Kitty, is one of the most significant steps in order to expand globally, and in the case of Sanrio’s characters have proven to be successful.
Aside from the House of Brand that the Sanrio Co. Ltd has employed, it also uses the mixed branding strategy. In which defined as a combination of corporate and House brands according to . In addition (2003) defined it as a strategy in which a company markets goods and services under its own name and that of a reseller catering to different consumers. Sanrio just established another company named Kokoro Company Ltd. and in this company they focus on creating humanoid robots. One of the advantages that Sanrio Co. Ltd. gets from the Kokoro Company Ltd. is the corporation was able to a develop product that deviates from their usual products Sanrio has been creating, marketing and selling. The company targets a new type of consumers which are robotic fans. And since the Sanrio Company has already established itself on the market, the new product will most likely be successful. However, since it is a totally different product, the Sanrio Co. Ltd. will have to prove their capabilities regarding animatronics. And because the Kokoro Company Ltd. ventured into a burgeoning product, it needs a lot of development and research before the product will be established in the market. But if the company managed to be successful they will become one of the pioneers in animatronics and will become as successful as Sanrio in the coming years.
Apart from the creation Kokoro Co. Ltd. the Sanrio Co. Ltd. could also create another stationary company, but this time it targets an older audience. In this company they will create stationeries, bags, apparels and accessories without childish characters such as Hello Kitty. The products will be more sophisticated than that of Sanrio and the colors of the products will be in neutral such as white, khakis, grays and black. This company will obtain great benefits from Sanrio since the creators and marketers behind the successful Sanrio brands will be the ones creating the new products for the company. And since Sanrio is already a household name all over the world the consumers will be assured that the quality will be the same as that of Sanrio products. However, the disadvantage is an aggressive marketing must be made in order to make the company visible to the consumers; it will take a big amount of money and time, especially in establishing shops all over the world. And the biggest challenge for the new company is to deviate as much as possible in the image of Sanrio via creating sophisticated products.
As mentioned earlier by regarding the company’s strengths which is having a timeless character, and consideration on a number of factors before releasing a design. Creating a timeless character would also be the new company’s weakness; the company would need a big catching up to do to even reach the status of Hello Kitty. The new character would most likely be shadowed by Hello Kitty’s image that would lead to the downfall of the new company. Moreover, designers in the new company need to create cute characters that will pass beyond the limit of age and gender.
The Sanrio Co. Ltd. can use the Corporate Branding Strategy, defined Corporate Branding as a strategy in which the corporate name is dominant in all products. Moreover (2006) defined it as using a single brand name in all the company’s products. The company can use it, especially when the company will be setting-up a product under the name Sanrio without creating new characters. The advantages that it will get are since the consumers are already loyal to the products of Sanrio the new product will be easily marketed and sold, the time consumed in establishing and marketing the product will be reduced. Still there are disadvantages like when the products of Sanrio did not meet the expectations of the consumers, the image of the company will be clouded. And the customers will have doubts on the subsequent products the company will launch under the corporation’s name. An example of the situation is when the company launched a new product under the name Sanrio without the characters such as Hello Kitty, the benefits will be the time to market will be lessen because it is already established, but when the consumers are not satisfied with the designs and overall appearance of the products, the subsequent products will not be successful and the consumers will have doubts in the ability of the company to provide products that meets their expectations.
The strength of the company that can be of big advantage is, like mentioned earlier, a huge consideration on factors that will affect the designs. Because of profound study and reviews on the season’s trends, the company will definitely create a line that will have a huge impact on the consumers. The weaknesses would be the other strengths of the other brand strategies such as creating a timeless product and a cute character that everyone would appreciate and will go beyond time. Development of a timeless product is very difficult especially nowadays wherein competition for global market is fierce, it would certainly be a weakness especially if the consumers are having high expectations and the company did not meet it, moreover, cuteness of cartoon character changes overtime, a cute character during this decade may not be on the next. Creating a cute and timeless character is a huge challenge if the company is going to use a corporate strategy knowing that they have already established a range of characters that all people around the world loves. On the other hand, if they become successful, the gains of the company will be truly fruitful.
The different brand strategies can be incorporated by the Sanrio Co. Ltd. especially if they are launching new brand of characters and if they are planning to venture into other products and services. The brand strategies discussed could be a very efficient strategy in boosting the sales and identity of a particular corporation or brand, the companies must understand the advantages and if not eliminate reduce the disadvantages of every strategy.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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