What do you get when a brand known for unsubtle sex appeal attempts a multiyear pivot to body affirmation and corporate wokeness? A whole bunch of nothing. Thus, Victoria’s Secret, with its familiar pink-and-black-themed displays of lacy bits and other boudoir essentials, has had difficulty adjusting to increasingly online and brand-skeptical young professional women, evidenced by a substantively declining market share.
Indeed, Victoria’s Secret may need to rethink its rebrand, because no one is buying its calculated wokeness.
The Wall Street Journal shared a recent study conducted by the retailer:
Most shoppers who participated in a study conducted by the lingerie seller in February weren’t able to identify Victoria’s Secret & Co. as the brand behind recent ads of models wearing its lingerie, according to internal research documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The ads show women with different ethnicities, body types and ages mostly in natural-looking lingerie, including a pregnant Grace Elizabeth and multiracial model Paloma Elsesser.
When asked to pick two images that portrayed the brand, the focus group of roughly 28 women, aged 18 to 40, consistently selected photos of Hailey Bieber, another Victoria’s Secret model, in leopard and shiny strap lingerie, the documents show. Once prompted, however, most customers agreed more inclusive marketing was a step in the right direction.
Note that despite Victoria’s Secret’s lead model being a curvier multi-ethnic woman, women repeatedly associated the brand with Hailey Bieber, the archetype of elfin models of yore. Only when audibly nudged (bullied) did the women agree on the value of inclusive marketing.
Adding to the retailer’s woes are the women understandably miffed at the company for ads and limited sizing that omit them from the pool of desirable customers. Perhaps the most underreported reason for Victoria’s Secret’s diminished stature is the long-term damage it’s done to the self-image of young women. For decades its campaigns depicted unnaturally perfect women draped over chesterfields and davenports, selling a particular vision of “sexy.” However, there’s a heckuva lot of women who aren’t that who nevertheless attain other visions of sexiness. Thirty years ago, the company could get away with not targeting them because their storefronts were both the most accessible and the least icky — it certainly beat buying from the adult-video store out by I-41.
But now, these women are rejecting Victoria’s Secret in favor of companies such as AdoreMe and LoveHoney that offer a much broader array of styles and sizes and the convenience of trying things on at home. What an outstanding provision of the free market.
So, where does that leave Victoria’s Secret? Seemingly in a no-win position: The women who might once have preferred the brand for lack of other options have gone elsewhere, while others who still like it are unmoved by its new, “inclusive” marketing and declining quality. What to do? If the company could accept a man’s advice — an unbiased observer, of sorts — here’s what I would suggest.
Women have known Victoria’s Secret for a long time, and the brand might as well accept where it sits in the lingerie landscape: the expensive mall brand that presents a particular vision of sexiness and idealized beauty. It can lean into this and go upscale, with trained staff and an improved, boutique-style shopping experience. But rejecting the brand that the company has long cultivated in favor of imitating its newly successful online competitors is foolish.