Sanrio Corporation | 156

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Down to Business English – Episode 156

Sanrio Corporation: The Business of Cute and Cultural Relevance

Hosts: Skip Montreux & Des Morgan
Release Date: March 27, 2019

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Skip and Des dive deep into the fascinating corporate story of Sanrio Co. Ltd.—the Japanese company best known for creating the global phenomenon Hello Kitty. They explore Sanrio’s business success, its evolution toward adult markets, the launch of new characters like Aggretsuko, and how these cultural icons reflect workplace realities in Japan and globally. Along the way, they provide informative context for English language learners interested in business terminology and cross-cultural trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power and Reach of Hello Kitty

• Hello Kitty's Global Impact:

  • Ranked number 4 in 2018’s "top animation characters" by Variety magazine, only trailing big-screen stars Winnie the Pooh, Po (Kung Fu Panda), and Scrat (Ice Age).
  • “According to Variety magazine, Hello Kitty ranked at number four behind Winnie the Pooh, Po from Kung Fu Panda, and Scrat from the Ice Age movies.” – Skip Montreux [02:39]

• Merchandising:

  • Hello Kitty products are sold in over 130 countries.
  • Merchandise increasingly targets adults (e.g., Hello Kitty Prosecco).

• Business Metrics:

  • 2017 sales: 60.3 billion yen (~$550 million); Profits: 4.8 billion yen (~$42.6 million).
  • Stock price soared (2010–2014), topping out at 6,000 yen/share, now at 2,000 yen, boosted recently (up 7%) by news of the Hello Kitty movie deal with Warner Bros.

2. Sanrio’s Brand Extensions & Collaborations

• Experiential Branding:
  • Themed transportation: e.g., 2018 Hello Kitty Bullet Train (Shinkansen) between Osaka and Fukuoka (“It is a standard bullet train, repainted pink with special Hello Kitty design carpets, seat covers and window coverings.” – Skip Montreux [05:14])
  • Aviation partnerships: e.g., Hello Kitty-decorated planes with China’s EVA Airways.

3. The Evolution to Adult-Oriented Characters: Aggretsuko

• Aggretsuko on Netflix:

  • Newest Sanrio character, targeted at adults.
  • Set in a Tokyo office; protagonist Retsuko copes with workplace bullying and gender discrimination by singing death metal at karaoke.
  • “Through her job, Retsuko experiences office politics, workplace bullying, and gender discrimination. And to deal with it… she heads to a karaoke bar and releases her frustrations by singing death metal songs.” – Skip Montreux [06:30]

• Real-World Resonance:

  • The show openly explores heavy topics such as power harassment (“‘Power harassment’? That’s a good way to describe it.” – Des Morgan [08:00]), a term coined by Yasuko Okada of Core C3 Company.
  • Workplace bullying and gender discrimination discussed as international problems, citing both Japan and the UK.

4. Broader Context: Work Culture Issues

• Workplace Bullying & ‘Power Harassment’:

  • Over 28% (72,000 out of 253,000) of 2017 Japan labor department inquiries related to bullying or harassment.
  • The challenge is global: UK survey cited that three in five workers felt work harmed their mental health; only a third felt supported by employers.

• Gender Discrimination:

  • UK pay gap highlighted—men paid 17.9% more than women (TUC research).
  • Underlying issue: Perception among many men that equality has already been achieved, stalling further progress (“…that is really worrying as you can’t fix something if you don’t think it’s broken.” – Des Morgan [09:10]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Hello Kitty’s Enduring Popularity:

  • “Kitty must be in the top 10 at least. Hey, maybe even the top 5.” – Des Morgan [02:26]
  • “Did you know that Hello Kitty-branded products are sold in over 130 countries?” – Skip Montreux [03:16]

• On Brand Power:

  • “You can now buy Hello Kitty Prosecco.” – Skip Montreux [04:01]
  • “I wouldn’t mind a glass of Hello Kitty sparkling wine. I’m guessing it’s a pink.” – Des Morgan [04:05]

• On the Hello Kitty Shinkansen:

  • “No, I’m not [kidding]. It came into service in June 2018… There is even a Hello Kitty doll dressed as a train attendant for photographs.” – Skip Montreux [05:14]

• On Workplace Realities Mirrored in Aggretsuko:

  • “So, in other words, the series is dealing with some very real problems through the use of animation.” – Des Morgan [06:47]
  • “Ms. Okada is credited with coining the term ‘power harassment’…” – Skip Montreux [08:04]

• On Societal Perception of Equality:

  • “…the real problem is that many men now feel that society has already achieved equality in most areas. So that means that nothing else needs to be done.” – Des Morgan [09:10]

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Business English Vocabulary Segment

(Selected words explained with context and examples—for English learners)

• Venerable: Given great respect due to age or knowledge. (“I used venerable somewhat jokingly to describe Hello Kitty… as Hello Kitty is 45 years old this year, maybe she is indeed venerable.” – Des Morgan [10:43])
• Top out: To reach the highest point before falling. (“…stock price topped out at 6,000 yen a share.” – Skip Montreux [11:28])
• Spring up: To emerge or start to grow. (“…consulting firms in Japan have started to spring up to deal with the issue of power harassment in companies.” – Des Morgan [12:14])
• Coin (a term): To create a new expression. (“…Yasuko Okada coined the expression ‘power harassment’…” – Skip Montreux [13:06])
• Cathartic: Providing psychological relief through expressed emotion. (“…you might find singing death metal songs cathartic.” – Des Morgan [13:42])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:31 – Introduction to Sanrio & Hello Kitty
• 02:12 – Hello Kitty’s character ranking and global impact
• 03:16 – Worldwide merchandising and sales performance
• 05:03 – Hello Kitty’s presence in travel & partnerships (bullet train, aviation)
• 06:04 – Debut and impact of Aggretsuko
• 07:07 – Discussion on power harassment and workplace bullying
• 08:33 – Gender pay gap and discrimination (UK context)
• 09:33 – Prevalence of bullying/harassment in Japan
• 10:43 – Business English vocabulary explanations

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Closing Notes

The episode wraps up with the hosts reflecting on the enduring appeal and adaptability of Sanrio’s brand—from children’s toys to relevant commentary on adult workplace issues. The discussion blends business insights with language learning, offering listeners not just an understanding of a major Japanese corporation but also useful vocabulary for navigating global business environments.

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For more episodes, vocabulary scripts, and learning resources, visit: downtobusinessenglish.com

Transcript

[Narrator]

From Tokyo, Japan and Abu Dhabi, uae, this is down to Business English Business news to improve your business English with your hosts, Skip Montreux and Des Morgan.

[Skip Montreux]

Hello, Des. Good to be speaking with you again so soon.

[Des Morgan]

Yeah, good to be podcasting with you too, Skip. How are things?

[Skip Montreux]

Not bad. The weather over here is certainly beginning to warm up. Although it does happen to be raining as we record this.

[Des Morgan]

Yeah, beginning to get warmer here too, which always fills me with dread as it means that summer is coming and it will be too hot to go outside in the daytime. Hey, isn't it cherry blossom viewing season soon?

[Skip Montreux]

That's right. It is just beginning to start. As a matter of fact, for those of you who don't know, Japan is famous for for its cherry blossoms, which are really quite beautiful when they all flower at the same time.

[Des Morgan]

The cherry blossom is also one of the symbols of Japan. The Japanese rugby team has the cherry blossom as its emblem on their shirts. England, of course, has the rose.

[Skip Montreux]

What is it about rugby nations and

[Des Morgan]

flowers and the Canadian maple leaf. That's really tough, isn't it?

[Skip Montreux]

Yeah, well, tougher than your flowers. Anyway. I'm not sure why we are getting all manly with each other.

[Des Morgan]

No, no, me neither.

[Skip Montreux]

Especially as our topic today is probably not a topic that many men discuss. Really?

[Des Morgan]

Are we going to be talking about cosmetic surgery, Skip?

[Skip Montreux]

No, not this time. But you know, that's a pretty good topic for the future. No, today we are going to be talking about Sanrio Co. Ltd. The cutest company in Japan, who are best known for bringing hello Kitty to the world.

[Des Morgan]

So let's do it. Let's get D2B down to business with the Sanrio Corporation, the creators of the venerable hello Kitty, their new character launched last year, and how this character reflects office life in big cities.

[Skip Montreux]

Hello Kitty is such an in internationally recognizable character.

[Des Morgan]

She certainly is.

[Skip Montreux]

But Daz, where do you think hello Kitty stood in the rankings of top animation characters of 2018?

[Des Morgan]

Mickey and Minnie Mouse are always up there. But then, they haven't been in a film or a hit TV series for quite some time. I would say Kitty must be in the top 10 at least. Hey, maybe even the top five.

[Skip Montreux]

And you would be right. According to Variety magazine, hello Kitty ranked at number four behind Winnie the Pooh Po from Kung Fu Panda and Scrat from the Ice Age movies.

[Des Morgan]

Well, that is interesting because the other three are all associated with movies. But hello Kitty has never been on the big screen.

[Skip Montreux]

Well, all of that is about to change as Sanrio has signed a deal with Warner Brothers to to make a movie starring hello Kitty for an undisclosed sum.

[Des Morgan]

A very large undisclosed sum, I would imagine.

[Skip Montreux]

I would be inclined to agree with you. Just think about how much Sanrio makes in merchandise sales worldwide. Did you know that hello Kitty branded products are sold in over 130 countries?

[Des Morgan]

I didn't, but I can tell you that Kitty is certainly popular here in the uae. There are a couple of Kitty outlets in Abu Dhabi, but the biggest one in the region is of course, in the Dubai Mall. The Dubai Mall was the biggest mall in the world when it opened, but I think it's been surpassed by a couple in Asia now.

[Skip Montreux]

Although Sanrio merchandise is primarily aimed at children, increasingly Sanrio characters have been appearing on more adult goods. Did you know that you can now buy hello Kitty Prosecco?

[Des Morgan]

I didn't, but I wouldn't mind a glass of hello Kitty sparkling wine. I'm guessing it's a pink.

[Skip Montreux]

I'm sure that it is.

[Des Morgan]

So, how do Sanrio's profits look?

[Skip Montreux]

Well, they have fallen a bit recently, but in 2017, Sanrio still made 60.3 billion yen, or around $550 million in sales, with profits of 4.8 billion yen, or about $42.6 million.

[Des Morgan]

How about the share price in Tokyo?

[Skip Montreux]

Well, they were holding pretty strong from 2010 to 2014, where they more than tripled in value, topping out at 6,000 yen per share. But then they fell quite a bit, rose again, and had another smaller peak at around 4,000 yen. Today, they are trading around 2,000 yen. However, share prices are up 7% on the news of the film.

[Des Morgan]

So a bumpy ride for investors then?

[Skip Montreux]

Yes, but it was not a bumpy ride on the hello Kitty themed Shinkansen or Bullet train, though.

[Des Morgan]

You're kidding me.

[Skip Montreux]

No, I'm not. It came into service in June 2018. It is a standard bullet train, repainted pink with special hello Kitty design carpets, seat covers and window coverings. There is even a hello Kitty doll dressed as a train attendant for photographs.

[Des Morgan]

So, have you taken that Bullet train yet, Skip?

[Skip Montreux]

No, it only ran between Osaka and Fukuoka, so I didn't have the chance. And it only ran for three months in 2018, so the special service is now over.

[Des Morgan]

Shame. I think it was back in 2013 when the Chinese airline Ava signed a deal with Sanrio to have planes especially decorated with hello Kitty, which I guess goes to show the power of the brand in Asia.

[Skip Montreux]

Now I would like to move on and talk about a new character that Sanrio has developed. And this one is for adults, not Children. The character name is called Aggretsuko and it has been shown on Netflix since April 2018. This series focuses on a red panda called Retsuko, who works in the accounting department of a trading firm in Tokyo.

[Des Morgan]

Hey, so far, so good.

[Skip Montreux]

Through her job, Retsuko experiences office politics, workplace bullying and gender discrimination. And to deal with it, at night after work, she heads to a karaoke bar and releases her frustrations by singing death metal songs.

[Des Morgan]

So, in other words, the series is dealing with some very real problems through the use of animation.

[Skip Montreux]

That's right.

[Des Morgan]

What does Aggretsuko mean?

[Skip Montreux]

In short, it stands for Aggressive Retsuko and is used to show how she feels after being bullied in the office or has experienced gender discrimination.

[Des Morgan]

Is bullying common in Japanese offices?

[Skip Montreux]

Well, judging by how popular Aggretsuko has become worldwide, I would say that it is probably an international problem. But yes, it does exist in Japan, unfortunately. I read an article in the Japan Times recently and it was all about how consulting firms have started to spring up to train nightmare bosses in better ways to interact with employees.

[Des Morgan]

I can think of a few bosses that would benefit from such a course.

[Skip Montreux]

Absolutely. Now, the article quoted Yasuko okada, chairwoman of Core C3 Company, a consultancy firm that conducts power harassment prevention courses geared towards educating abusive bosses. She believes anger directed towards subordinates who have made bullying accusations is commonplace.

[Des Morgan]

Power harassment? That's a good way to describe it.

[Skip Montreux]

Ms. Okada is credited with coining the term power harassment after her company started to offer training courses in the area in 2014.

[Des Morgan]

You know, a survey of 2,000 employees in the UK found that three in five workers believe their mental health has been negatively affected by their work, while only a third said their mental well being was being supported by their employer. So? So? So things seem to be similar in both countries.

[Skip Montreux]

How about gender discrimination?

[Des Morgan]

There was a big scandal last year about the gender pay gap at the BBC when it was discovered that male presenters were paid considerably more than female ones. In fact, the Trade Union's Congress, or TUC, has found that men are paid 17.9% more than women on average in the UK.

[Skip Montreux]

That is inequality of pay. But do any other forms of inequality exist?

[Des Morgan]

I'm sure they do, but the trouble is that they are much more difficult to measure.

[Skip Montreux]

That is the problem.

[Des Morgan]

A UK based consulting firm, Bain Co. Stated back in 2013 that the real problem is that many men now feel that society has already achieved equality in most areas. So that means that nothing else needs to be done. That is really worrying as you can't fix something if you don't think that it's broken.

[Skip Montreux]

Here In Japan, of 253,000 inquiries made to labor departments nationwide in fiscal 2017, 72,000 of them involved bullying and harassment. The number one issue for the sixth consecutive year seems as though it is still a big issue in many countries.

[Des Morgan]

Maybe you could go to karaoke and sing some death metal like a Gretzko, Skip. I hear that it's cathartic. Or of course you could just watch the program on Netflix.

[Skip Montreux]

Maybe I will do that at some point. But for now, I think it is time for us to get D2D2V down to vocabulary,

[Narrator]

down to Business English audio scripts are a great learning tool. Be sure to visit the D2B website and download your free audio script of today's podcast downtobusinessenglish.com that's www.downtobusinessenglish.com.

[Des Morgan]

I will start off today with the adjective vener, which means to be given great respect because of age or knowledge. In the story, I used venerable somewhat jokingly to describe the character of hello Kitty because it's a cartoon character. However, as hello Kitty is 45 years old this year, maybe she is indeed venerable.

[Skip Montreux]

A business leader that was often described as venerable in his later years was Sony's Akio Morita. He took the company from a small, humble beginning to the world leader that it finally became.

[Des Morgan]

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Automotive, was similarly venerable. What's that next word, Skip?

[Skip Montreux]

Next is the two part verb to top out. When you say something tops out, you are communicating that it has reached its highest point before falling. In the story, I used it to describe the highest point that Sanrio stock achieved in 2014. I said the stock price topped out at 6,000 yen a share.

[Des Morgan]

Although topping out is often used to describe stock performance, it can be used in other ways too. Power consumption usually tops out in early evening when people are at home using the heating or cooling and watching TV or using a computer.

[Skip Montreux]

Definitely power consumption tops out in the summer here in Japan and in the winter in my home country of Canada.

[Des Morgan]

Moving on, I want to talk about another multi part verb, to spring up, which means to start or to start to become more popular. Think of a new plant in spring starting to grow out of the ground, as that's where the expression comes from.

[Skip Montreux]

Makes sense.

[Des Morgan]

In the story, Skip talked about how consulting firms in Japan have started to spring up to deal with the issue of power harassment in companies.

[Skip Montreux]

Another example I've noticed is the movement towards traditional handmade foods and goods. Small artisan shops and cafes have started to spring up in my local neighborhood.

[Des Morgan]

It's starting to happen here too. I actually stopped into a new shop last night that recently sprung up in my neighborhood.

[Skip Montreux]

Oh, did you buy anything?

[Des Morgan]

Nah, just window shopping for now anyway.

[Skip Montreux]

Next up is the verb to coin something, which means to be the first person to create or to use an expression. In the story, I said that Yasuko Okada coined the expression power harassment because she was the first person to use it.

[Des Morgan]

An Australian student in 2012 claims to have coined the expression selfie, which went on to become the Oxford English Dictionary's word of 2013.

[Skip Montreux]

I guess someone had to be first. Too bad that student couldn't license the word for a royalty fee.

[Des Morgan]

Yeah, no doubt. Our final word for today is the adjective cathartic, which means to provide psychological relief by expressing emotions. In the story, I joked to skip that he might find singing death metal songs cathartic.

[Skip Montreux]

I'm not sure that I would find them cathartic. Although, sticking with the unmanliness of today's topic, I do find that having a good cry when watching a sad or romantic movie is quite cathartic. However, Des, if you tell anyone of my friends that I will deny it.

[Narrator]

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[Des Morgan]

Thanks for that report on Sanrio Ko Skep. Very informational. I'll have to check out that new Aggretsuko anime on Netflix.

[Skip Montreux]

I think you would enjoy it. You will certainly recognize some of the topics and themes from having lived and worked in Japan in the past.

[Des Morgan]

I look forward to it.

[Skip Montreux]

So Des, if I'm not mistaken, you are about to take a spring break back to the uk. Is that right?

[Des Morgan]

I am. Just a quick trip though. I'll be back in no time.

[Skip Montreux]

Well, please do enjoy that while you are away. Samantha and I will do our best to put out an episode of D2B.

[Des Morgan]

And I should mention that I'm currently researching the topic of student loan debt and its impact on the global economy, so that should be ready to record as soon as I'm back.

[Skip Montreux]

That sounds great. Safe travels, Des. I will speak to you when you are back in the uae.

[Des Morgan]

Yes, let's do that.

[Skip Montreux]

Thanks for listening everyone. See you next time. Bye Bye.

[Narrator]

Have a comment or question about today's show? Don't be shy. Visit the D2B website or the Facebook page and post any comments or questions there. Skip Des or Samantha will be sure to leave a Reply Want to get even more down to Business English? Sign up for the D2B Newsletter and receive updates on some of the stories covered on down to business English. That's www.downtobusinessenglish.com down to business English Business News to improve your business English.