Recently new management at Victoria’s Secret successfully repositioned its brand and its’ adjacent brand “Pink”. How they did this provides a useful template for any business looking to restore growth. Coincidentally the founding of Victoria’s Secret was also the result of a smart brand opportunity analysis of the lingerie market.
My Co-Worker Founded Victoria’s Secret
In the 1970’s, as a brand manager I worked with Roy Raymond at Vicks. Roy was short, quiet and very smart. After returning from a three-year assignment in London, I learned that Roy got married and moved to San Francisco. For her birthday, he wanted to buy his wife some “sexy yet tasteful” lingerie. Roy did his due diligence research, visiting stores where he felt quite uncomfortable as a male, and also studying the competition. He learned that there was a spectrum of different brands, from the trashy, obvious Fredriks’ of Hollywood dominating one end, and the staid, conservative Playtex Cross-Your-Heart bras on the other end.
Roy identified an opportunity in the middle for a classy, sexy, intimate line of lingerie that would appeal to young-middle aged women. He asked his wife to design such products, created the brand name “Victoria’s Secret”, opened a store with a comfortable setting that would not be intimidating for men, and flooded the market with revealing yet dignified photos of models in new Victoria’s Secret lingerie. Sales took off. Roy could not keep up with the demand, so he sold his business to L Brands after a few years. Sadly, after two more start-ups that failed and his broken marriage, he threw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge.
New Management Assessment
Fast forward to 2024 when Hillary Super was hired as chief executive. Business was down significantly, mainly due to the decline of the sister brand, Pink. This extension was introduced in 2002, and sales peaked in 2018 with about $ 3 billion in annual revenue. The Pink brand was originally positioned to attract teenage and college-age girls, with a wide mix of loungewear, sleepwear and underwear. A catalog headline captures its brand image – “Think fun. Think flirty. Think Pink”.
Branding is strategic, but sometimes it needs some refreshing due to things like changing consumer habits, competition or product advances. In this case, previous management gradually treated Pink more as a cheaper alternative to the main Victoria’s Secret products, hence diminishing its brand identity. There were also other changes in the market that adversely affected Victoria’s Secret:
- The # MeToo movement led to attitudes in conflict with Victoria’s Secret’s sex-forward image which seemed outdated and crass.
- Consumer preferences shifted with women demanding comfortable versions of bras – e.g. softer fabrics and wireless bralettes.
- Bad publicity about Leslie Wexner, its chief executive, and his association with Jeffrey Epstein and how they treated young women (he resigned soon after this scandal erupted in 2019)
A More Relevant Brand Positioning
Hillary Super recognized that American culture had shifted away from the narrow definition of sexiness that was conveyed in Victoria’s Secret’s brand image and marketing. Sexiness would continue to be the primary theme, but with more nuance so a customer could interpret this dimension with a more personalized preference, not just how Victoria’s Secret defined it. In short, it offered a broader view of what sexiness means.
Ideally a clear description of the target customer should also mirror the brand personality and image. The “new” Pink brand was repositioned, as defined by Ali Dillon, the new president of Pink, as “She’s feminine and flirty, but she’s also mischievous. She doesn’t take herself too seriously, she has a lot of fun, she is with her girlfriends all the time”. Compared to the new Victoria’s Secret brand image of being “sexy, glamorous and luxurious”, Pink would have a more distinct, youthful identity – “bold, playful and irreverent”.
Other changes helped turn the business around, i.e. updating its 800 stores, supporting cultural values popular with young women (e.g. mental wellness, pay equity, gay rights and women’s sports), a new model and advertising campaign, and even adding a cutesy dog mascot for the Pink brand. All these improvements have turned green, with five straight quarters of sales gains and a 39 per cent stock price rise so far this year.
