It seems that the people at Sanrio actually do read this blog. I found the following email waiting for me this morning:
Hi Hello Kitty Hell,
I handle corporate communications for the Outblaze Group, which includes Sanrio Digital and Sanriotown. We were extremely disturbed to learn about the “when will you die” ad you reported at
//www.kittyhell.com/2008/06/02/hello-kitty-death-warning/
We are grateful that we were able to learn about this problem from your blog, as we have never encountered this ad ourselves. The imagery and message are very disturbing and has absolutely no place on any Sanrio web site. We have attempted to track down the culprit, however our ad serving agency (Activ8) cannot find the appropriate record without some additional information. The matter is complicated by the fact that there is no identifiable brand or URL on the screenshot.
It would be most helpful if we could obtain some information from the person who sent you the ad (Amy). The clickthrough URL would help us a lot. Alternatively, if we can determine the date and time that the ad displayed, we can check our logs and try to find out who the advertiser is. If you could put me in touch with the person who submitted the screenshot to you, or if you could relay some questions to Amy for us, we can try get to the bottom of this.
Thanks very much for reporting this and for your assistance.
Best regards,
Ibrahim