Here is what they use to promote!!
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Posted on 01/16/2023 6:49:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind
After Victoria’s Secret’s stock price plummeted last week and CEO Amy Hauk announced her departure after just eight months at the lingerie brand, conservative critics were quick to diagnose the company’s failures as a classic case of “go woke, go broke.”
It’s an easy, albeit lazy, argument to make considering the brand’s recent shift to “inclusive” models and the cancellation of their iconic “Angels” fashion show, but it ignores broader challenges across the retail industry, especially issues faced by brands with a long-held association with the now nearly extinct shopping malls.
Victoria’s Secret introduced its more “inclusive” rebrand campaign in 2021, announcing a shift from its iconic bombshell models such as Naomi Campbell and Gisele Bundchen to “changemakers” like U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe, actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, model Adut Akech, plus-sized model Paloma Elsesser, and even transgender model Valentina Sampaio. But blaming these “woke” changes that only happened less than a year and a half ago doesn’t add up when you consider the brand faced nearly identical leadership changes in 2018 and slumping sales since 2019, which is also the same year it canceled the once incredibly popular pop culture event, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
A more likely culprit for the brand’s struggles is its inability to recover from its image as a shopping mall destination for bands of teenagers wooed by the striped pink walls and the PINK Puppy logo. It’s safe to assume the brand was certainly happy to fold those giddy teenagers into its marketing base, but when online retailers such as ThirdLove and Adore Me offered cheaper and often higher-quality products available at the click of an Instagram ad, long-time millennial Victoria’s Secret customers abandoned the brand in the same way they abandoned shopping malls and brands like Abercrombie and American Eagle altogether.
The shift was compounded by the rise of athleisure brands such as Lululemon and Athleta, which offered trendier and higher quality versions of the tracksuits, loungewear, and swimwear Victoria’s Secret was once known for as much as its lingerie.
Finally, no amount of “body positivity” marketing or plus-sized models will change the American consumer’s association of the brand with beautiful, even if unattainable, female bodies plastered on 12-foot posters in mall windows. This is best illustrated by the fact that despite the company’s ongoing attempts at rebranding for several years now, one of the top viral TikTok songs of 2022 and a Billboard Top 100 song titled “Victoria’s Secret,” by the singer/songwriter Jax, is constantly played on pop stations as an anthem against “body shaming” and takes direct aim at the company.
“I know Victoria’s secret / And girl, you wouldn’t believe / She’s an old man who lives in Ohio / Making money off of girls like me / Cashing in on body issues / Selling skin and bones with big boobs,” the chorus rings out. Corporate media were quick to adopt the TikTok star’s messaging, writing clicky headlines about how the viral hit, “EXPOSES LINGERIE COMPANY FOR INHERENT SEXISM AND TOXICITY.”
Perhaps more impressive than VS’s ability to stay in business for as long as it has is its ability to maintain a brand image simultaneously known for “inherent sexism” while also employing transgender models and “going woke.” Maybe riding the fine line between both is the secret to staying afloat, for now.
When you destroy your hard-built branding, you have no differentiators, and it makes it much easier for competition to take market share.
You have to look at when they were successful, and after fully appreciating that, then see what changed.
It was taken over by the blob of blubber.
If only you would have had a dyke and transgender female in your marketing advertising. Oh wait.
Drew68, you are my personal hero for today!
I love that expression and can't wait to integrate it into my active vocabulary.
Regards,
That is the thing that is fundamentally offensive, the gaslighting, the social engineering.
The women mentioned are simply tools used by those engaging in this "social justice war".
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I harshly judge no-one on what they find attractive. In the end, it is their life to choose and live, not mine.
What I do have a problem with is people who believe they can social-engineer people. When I see attempts to social engineer me, and recognize them as such, I am inclined to reject the premise out of hand and dig in my heels against the concept being pushed.
I understand the point you make about modern "supermodels" illustrated from this script passage from the animated feature "The Incredibles":
EDNA: Yes, things are going quite well. Quite well. My God, no complaints. But, you know, it is not the same. Not the same at all.
MR. INCREDIBLE: Weren't you just in the news? Some show in Prayge...Prague?
EDNA: Milan, darling. Milan. Supermodels. Ha! Nothing super about them. Spoiled, stupid, little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves. Feh! I used to design for gods. But perhaps you come with a challenge, eh? I was surprised to get your call.
I thought Torrid was the store for big girls.
One would have to actually see the plus sized models used to make this determination.
Victoria's Secret spent a lifetime building up its reputation as the place to go to buy something to make a woman even more beautiful and sexy, no matter how beautiful or sexy she was to begin with.
And they tried to use the most physically beautiful of women to convey this.
Now? If a woman has little to no physical beauty, and having them wear a 10 cent paper bag over their head is an improvement, why would they need the expensive undergarments from your company?
There are plenty of women I like and admire who are obese or physically unattractive. But I don't like or admire them for their physical attractiveness. I admire them for who they are, not what they look like. and if that is the case, why would the expensive undergarments from your company help that out?
It doesn't make sense. I view it as a matter of the intentional destruction of a product in the pursuit of an offensive goal.
Well, going woke certainly didn’t help. No one is disputing that.
Remember: Get woke, go broke!
Now it’s been proved!
Epic line from some comedian … “When I’m shopping for lingerie, the last thing I want to see is an advertisement with a model who is built like a janitor.”
It can be called competition when the output, products and marketing, are alike. BedBathetc does not compete against M$oft.
Did the supposedly competitive outfits feature and encourage participation by MzJabbatheHuts?
RE: Did the supposedly competitive outfits feature and encourage participation by MzJabbatheHuts?
I don’t think they do. But yet, they are in the same business — Women’s outfit. The fact that they DO NOT encourage MzJabbatheHuts gives them one competitive edge in the market over Victoria’s Secret.
Case in point, the new MLK statue in Boston which, depending on the angle of view, looks like a giant turd, a giant black dong, or a bald man performing cunnilingus.
Fecal and obscene.
But don't dare say a bad word about it! Beautiful, brave, thought-provoking are the terms that must be used to describe this monstrosity that now berths at the same location where General Washington once mustered his troops.
I think Megan Rapinoe is still an active soccer player - or was until recently - so why does she look about 60 years old?
I guess I am not good at sarcasm
i think far in the future, an honest history book will look on this whole woke business as a mass delusion.Exactly. Management didn't wake up one day and decide to go woke. It already was, and this was just another bad decision.
Repulsive both inside and out.
Inner beauty can overcome a lack of physical beauty.
Physical beauty can and often does conceal a lack of inner beauty.
But when there is neither spiritual nor physical beauty, redemption in the eyes of fellow human beings is difficult to come by.
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