Editor’s note: Games People Play made the cover of the Wall Street Journal this week for manning Spam Booths at Hello Kitty conventions. In the July/August edition of Austin Living Magazine, Games People Play’s Jackie Bumgardner shared her experiences in going to a convention featuring Hello Kitty fans for the first time. The July/August edition is out now.

Hello Kitty, the popular Japanese cutesy mascot has found a local connection on her way to making more friends.

Hormel Foods Corp. and Sanrio, the company behind the Hello Kitty brand, cooked up an interesting partnership last year which has garnered lots of attention.

Hormel, along with local marketing and design firm Games People Play, brought a Spam Musubi kit to the 2014 Hello Kitty Con in Los Angeles. It was so popular, the marketing team sold out of kits, which featured a Hello Kitty-style mold for rice.

“We had lines stretching a city block back for hours until the end of the day,” said Jackie Bumgardner, a marketing manager for Games People Play. “We would go back to our hotel rooms, eat and then go to bed so we could get back up and do it all over again.”

This summer, Hormel and Games People Play are going on tour with Sanrio for the Hello Kitty Supercute Friendship Festival, which is visiting major cities around the U.S.

“It’s part of the beauty of the Spam brand,” Jennifer Nolander, marketing representative for Hormel’s grocery products division, said.

The recent development has garnered plenty of attention, from masses of Hello Kitty fans to the Wall Street Journal, which published a story on Hello Kitty and Spam Wednesday.

A chance meeting between Games People Play employees and an executive from Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, was the impetus behind the trip to Hello Kitty Con last October. From there, the opportunities grew. Hormel is now one of the sponsors behind the Hello Kitty Supercute Friendship Festival.

According to Nolander, the opportunity to participate in the festival was a great fit for Hormel’s experiential marketing tactics — exposing people to the brand through a fun, interactive experience rather than regular advertising.

“It was a match made in heaven,” she said.

Spam has found a huge following in many Asian countries. Japan, the birthplace of all things Hello Kitty, is also one of the biggest markets for Spam, a favorite in many Asian-inspired dishes.