The recent re-branding of Victoria’s Secret demonstrates a classic marketing challenge for adapting to changing tastes and desires of primary target customers. Recognizing how your audience has evolved is half the battle. A bigger question is how to update a brand to retain your core customers, yet also appeal to the emerging values of other potential customers. Understanding the origin of the Victoria’s Secret brand concept can help.
In 1977 Roy Raymond started Victoria’s Secret with his first store near San Francisco. Roy grew up in Fairfield, CT, went to Tufts then an MBA from Stanford in 1971. I actually worked with Roy in the early 1970’s at Richardson-Vicks in brand management. He was quiet, shy yet very smart and creative. Roy then got married and moved to the West Coast. He wanted to buy his new wife some “tastefully sexy lingerie” for her birthday, but felt awkward and out of place in the store. Roy examined this market and saw a void, with frilly, even trashy lingerie from Frederick’s of Hollywood on one end of the spectrum, and the utilitarian Playtex on the end, with tiny brands in between.
Roy’s brand idea focused on a woman’s desire to look and feel sexy, mainly for their male partner, yet with a more upscale, refined style, yet still seductive. Under the name “Victoria’s Secret”, his first boutique store reflected this brand concept, resembling a Victorian boudoir with Oriental carpets, cozy chairs and antiques, and an environment where men would not feel uncomfortable. Its first 24 page catalogue showed partially clad models wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie, often read by couples shopping together.
The business took off. Sales jumped from $500,000 to $6 million, including five new prosperous stores. But the company grew so fast that it could not get enough financing to pay its bills, so it was sold for $4 million to the retailing behemoth, The Limited in 1982. Sadly Roy, the ultimate entrepreneur, started several other ventures which failed, divorced his wife, and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death in 1993.
A Sensational Success Story
The Limited took Victoria’s Secret brand nationwide with $7 billion in sales, 32,000 jobs, over 1,400 stores and a dominant 32% share of the women’s underwear market in 2015. Its marketing included beautiful Victoria’s Secret “angels” in an obvious guise of male fantasy, young supermodels with flat bellies, narrow hips, and full bosoms. Blatantly a stereotype image of sexy femininity, this iconic brand was positioned through a male lens and what men desired.
In recent years however, this version of “sexy” became unrealistic and less appealing. Sales declined to $5 billion and market share dropped to 21%. The new chief executive of the brand, Martin Waters, said “when the world was changing, we were too slow to respond. We needed to stop being about what men want and to be about what women want.”
The recent Victoria’s Secret re-branding was based on a new definition of “sexy”, designed to become the primary engine for reversing its decline. Recognizing that every woman has their own interpretation of what it means to be sexy, the new brand positioning is focused on the inclusion of all different body types and personalities. The angels are now seven accomplished women (the “VC Collective”) from different countries and professions, representing a wide range of sizes, styles and diversity, including motherhood. One of them is Megan Rapinoe, the 35 year old gay soccer star, who said “functionality (and comfort) is probably the sexiest thing we could possibly achieve in life. Sometimes just cool is sexy too.”
Will this new meaning of “sexy” turn the Victoria’s Secret brand around? There is no question the brand was out of touch – i.e. that female empowerment, emphasis on achievement and not proportions, and a broader, more inclusive target customer goal are more realistic today. But being sexy is a state of mind and very emotion driven, a feeling of security and confidence, so will these core changes resonate with enough women to inspire a return to its iconic stature? Victoria’s Secret deserves credit for at least admitting to their obsolete brand image and values, albeit late, but will this re-branding attract enough new and different women now?
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