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（一只穿著粉色外套的斑點狗）和Pandapple（蘋果熊，一只小熊貓）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（一只兔子）和TuxedoSam（一只小企鵝），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“鉆石”的是一只黑貓，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考慮有這么一組龐大的卡通形象，各類人總能在當中找到自己喜歡的。