Companies get together for cross-promotion all the time. It’s nothing new. But some of the pairings are pretty bizarre. Take Fender licencing Hello Kitty to produce a Hello Kitty Guitar.
I know, totally weird.
I found out about this because of a bizarre Facebook status a friend, who shall remain nameless, wrote. “…wants a Hello Kitty that can play guitar.” Knowing that there are often stories or lyrics behind these status lines, I enlisted Google’s help and found this guitar. As soon as I saw it was real, I expected Lisa Loeb to be involved, and I was right. She’s mental for Hello Kitty. Me? Not so much, despite my being mental for Lisa Loeb.
I think their showing a tweener girl with the pink guitar (also available in black!) gives a fairly solid indication of the target demographic. The ad copy claiming that “it’s cool, it rocks” pretty much assures that Fender themselves know no one who is cool and who really does rock is likely to actually use the thing.
Still, if it gets more girls to play guitar, it can’t be bad.
The ad is ©2005 Fender Musical Instrument Corporation.
Hello Kitty herself is ©1976 and 2005 Sanrio Co. Ltd.
Seth
I have taught girls who own this guitar and let me tell you it sounds terrible!