Victoria’s Secret: Case Study
Written By: Amayah Meas
MBA student Roy Raymond was displeased with the level of difficulty that came with shopping for his wife’s lingerie. Underwear was unfashionable and the whole shopping experience was just awkward. In 1977, he decided to open the first Victoria’s Secret in Palo Alto, California, a store designed for men to have a comfortable, intimate, and relaxing space to buy lingerie for their wives. A mail order catalog was tied to the businesses where customers could place orders over the phone as well. With over $4 million in annual sales by 1982, Les Wexner, founder of The Limited, bought the brand which significantly expanded its assets into shopping malls globally. Since then, Victoria’s Secret has built a strong identity for themselves in the lingerie industry, but certain scandals and the consumers’ adapting preferences have caused them to lose their throne.
Victoria’s Secret has a reputation for embracing an unrealistic body type as the ideal. With consumer preferences changing to prioritize inclusivity and diversity, the brand is viewed in a harsh light because of the brand image they have built for themself since their opening decades ago. Sales are falling behind, and the brand intends to rebuild their influence by addressing consumers’ discontent with their marketing strategies in the long term. However, the brand faces challenges that prohibit the brand’s attempt for success through reinvention. These include their long history of promoting harmful body standards, the rise in e-commerce and social media, and their outdated marketing strategies.
The brand has dug a deep hole for themselves since their opening in 1977. With sexist, unrealistic, and harmful values since the beginning, it is hard for them to rebrand themselves to be more inclusive without it looking like a PR stunt. The popular Victoria’s Secret Angels refer to any model or ambassador for the brand, traditionally known to be Caucasian, thin, and almost “perfect” looking, with a few token ethnic models sprinkled in here and there. The brand has been known to encourage crazy diets and workout regimens, and their models have gotten smaller over time. For decades, the brand has taken pride in their VS Angles marketing strategy which has established their identity and contributed to success in the past. For a model, it was a huge achievement to audition and be casted as an Angel, and they are still highly regarded for this accomplishment today. However, their brand image has become outdated and tone deaf due to its failure to align with women’s evolving attitudes and will be difficult to change because of its long history.
In 2015, Victoria’s Secret launched the “Perfect Body” campaign to promote their new body line, which featured ten models who all had the same thin, light skinned body type. Although it seemed ordinary for the brand, it received major backlash from consumers. Meanwhile, in 2018, chief marketing officer Ed Razek said in a Vogue interview that he stood against including plus sized and transgender models in the annual VS runway show because it did not align with their target audience, which appeared to only include thinner women (Bardey, 2021). He claimed that many other brands cater to women of specific size ranges, so why is it wrong for Victoria’s Secret to do the same? Eventually by 2019, their annual runway show was canceled, and 53 stores closed due to a huge decline in sales and major price reductions.
Consumers demand inclusivity. With the overtaking presence of social media, harmful beauty standards have been engrained into the minds of the users, especially those of the millennial and generation Z which are the largest consumer bases in this industry. These unrealistic standards have led to sums of negative physical and psychological effects including but not limited to eating disorders, self-objectification, and body dissatisfaction which all tie into a negative impact on well-being. The rise of e-commerce over the last decade has led to the rise of digitally native brands who embrace the demand for inclusivity, like Savage x Fenty (Bardey, 2021). Unlike Victoria’s Secret, Savage x Fenty has a wide size range and features models of all shapes, sizes, races, ages, religions, and sexual orientations. As the founder, Rihanna has had a history of accomplishments and philanthropy, including her donations to foundations of social and environmental issues, her influence in the music industry, and her overall influence in the world. She is known to promote confidence by encouraging self-love and acceptance and her products provide her audience the means to do so, therefore, her brand values do not feel inauthentic given her established identity. Her brand has proven to be successful in aligning with consumer needs unlike Victoria’s Secret. While VS promotes what customers should aspire to be like, Savage x Fenty promotes what customers resonate with and already look like.
Along with the demand for inclusivity, consumer preferences shifted from aesthetic to comfort and functionality. People wanted larger underwear sizes and more nude color options, something unfamiliar to the brand. Their lack of touch in the real world relates directly to the marketing concepts of value proposition and unique selling proposition. Value proposition is the added value a company promises to deliver. VS’s values aligned with the idea that lingerie helps to build a woman’s body image and induces feelings of comfort, satisfaction, and positive self- esteem (Bardey, 2021). However, their marketed values contradict this proposition because they are very harmful, not positive, or aspirational (especially with the rise of social media and its toxicity). A unique selling proposition refers to a unique product or aspect of a company that makes them different from others and aligns with their goals and missions. VS’s whole thing with the “perfect body” and non-inclusive campaigns is outdated and does not align with any attempted goals to promote demanded diversity or inclusivity.
To address their problem of having an insensitive and outdated brand image, a possible solution is to increase their size range. This allows them to catch up with their inclusive competitors while also having their reputation of good lingerie products to back them. It will increase their product mix and is also a great way to launch updated marketing campaigns that promote body positivity. While this objectively looks good for the brand, it may be hard to combat their already established brand values that promote the ideal body type which only includes small sizes for a specific type of customer. So, announcing a wider size range could come across as a PR stunt considering the zeitgeist, where many brands who already have inclusive size ranges do not have a dark past of harmful marketing strategies. Another solution is to promote transparency. Many competitors including Savage x Fenty are not fully transparent with their supply chain techniques and production processes. If Victoria’s Secret became open about their labor and materials, it would put them a step ahead of other major fast fashion lingerie companies while also attracting the attention of customers who prioritize ethical practices. An environmentally friendly campaign will also be easier to do than trying to change their original brand values of ideal body types by suddenly launching an inclusive size range, and doesn’t directly contradict their original brand identity that they dug for themselves. However, being transparent requires a degree of ethics, and using responsible materials and labor practices will increase the price of their products and may also limit their product mix to include only those that are sourced ethically. A final option is the introduce an activewear line. Especially with consumers preferring comfort and functionality (Bhattarai, 2020), an activewear line would be a great way to drive sales to loyal customers. It is also an opportunity to incorporate an increased size range while looking less like a PR stunt and more like a new addition to the company going forward.
While each solution presented will likely increase the company’s revenue, the best recommendation is to introduce an activewear line. The priority for consumers right now is inclusivity. This option provides the most room to address this concern and will also provide new outlets to generate revenue while increasing the product mix and opportunities for promotional activity. A good way to measure the success is to monitor social media activity, including user engagement, comments, and likes. Comments are a great way for customers to voice their concerns easily and publicly to the company, so having positive feedback on their posts will be a good indicator to the company that they are doing well with the campaign. Having increased revenue from the new line is a numerical way of measuring success. Lingerie and activewear are similar in product categories, and brands like Aerie sell both activewear and underwear. Having an activewear line is well within the brand’s product range and is an accessible way to generate profit, incorporate more sizes, and gradually change the brand’s perceived image.
References
Library wide: Fashion institute of technology. Library Wide | Fashion Institute of Technology. (January 2021). Retrieved October 27, 2022, from https://www-bloomsburyfashioncentral- com.libproxy.fitsuny.edu/business-case?docid=b-9781350197046&tocid=b- 9781350197046-005&st=Victoria%2BSecret
Bhattarai, A. (2020, February 21). 5 factors that led to victoria's Secret's fall. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 27, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/20/5-factors-that-led-victorias-secrets- fall/
