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Victoria's Secret

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Victoria's Secret
Company typePublic (NYSE: LTD)
Industryapparel
Founded1977
HeadquartersUnited States Columbus, Ohio, USA
Key people
EVP and CFO: William Matt
SVP of Design: John Caleo VP, Public Relations
Pink: Jennifer Wolinetz [1]
Productsbras, panties, sleepwear, hosiery, women's clothing, fragrances and beauty products
RevenueIncrease $3222.00 million (FY 2006)[1]
Websitehttp://www.victoriassecret.com/

For the Sonata Arctica single, see Victoria's Secret (song)

Victoria's Secret is an American retailer of women's wear, lingerie and beauty products.[2] It is the largest brand and a segment of publicly traded Limited Brands with sales surpassing $5 billion and an operating income of US$1 billion in 2006.[2] Victoria's Secret is well known for its fashion shows and catalogues, which feature top fashion models such as Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio.

History

Victoria's Secret was started in San Francisco, California in 1977 by Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond,[3] who felt embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in very public and awkward department store environment. He opened the first store at Stanford Shopping Center, and quickly followed it with a mail order catalog and 3 other stores.[3] The stores were meant to create a comfortable environment for men, wood paneled walls, Victorian details, and helpful sales staff. Instead of racks of bras and panties in every size, there were single styles, paired together, and mounted on the wall in frames. Men could browse for styles and then sales staff would help estimate the appropriate size, pulling from inventory in the back. In 1982, after 5 years of operations, Roy Raymond sold the company to The Limited.

The Limited kept the personalized image of Victoria's Secret intact. Victoria's Secret was rapidly expanded into the America's malls throughout the 1980s. The company was able to vend a widened range of products such as shoes, evening wear, perfumes among others with its mail catalog issued eight times annually.

By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest American lingerie retailer topping the billion dollar mark.[4]

On July 10, 2007, Limited Brands Inc. sold 75% of Limited clothing chain to buyout firm Sun Capital Partners Inc. to focus and boost sales growth on Victoria's Secret lingerie stores and Bath & Body Works units, which provided 72% of revenue in 2006 and almost all the firm's profit.[5]

Marketing Strategy

File:Ambrosio-lima-vs-swim-06.jpg
Most recent look of Victoria's Secret catalog

Victoria's Secret is a specialty retailer of women's intimate apparel. It has about 1,000 Victoria's Secret lingerie stores and 100 stand-alone Victoria's Secret Beauty Stores in the US, mostly mall-based. It sells bras, panties, hosiery, beauty products, sleepwear, and more. Victoria's Secret mails more than 400 million of its catalogs per year.[1] Under pressure from environmentalist groups, Victoria's Secret's parent firm and a conservation group have reached an agreement to make the lingerie retailer's catalog more environmentally friendly in 2006. The catalogue will no longer be made of pulp supplied from any woodland caribou habitat range in Canada, unless it has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The catalogs will also be made of 10 percent recycled paper from post-consumer waste.[6]

Victoria's Secret is now building its image with a fairly conservative, middle-class shopper in mind and avoided any connotations of sleaziness which lingerie might carry.[4]

The company gained notoriety in the early 1990s after it began to use supermodels in its advertising and fashion shows. Throughout the past decade, it refused to follow the celebrity trend, turning down at least one celebrity a month begging to model the brand.[7]

Victoria's Secret Angels

File:Victorias-secret-embrace.JPG
Victoria's Secret Angels on a commercial for the Secret Embrace line.

Victoria's Secret Angels are the most visible members of the modeling team and are the spokespersons for Victoria's Secret. The Angels debuted in 1999 on the 4th annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Maria Inés Rivero, Adriana Lima, Heidi Klum, Rebecca Romijn, and Tyra Banks are among the "Angels" used in the original promotion.[8] The 'Angels' are chosen, "By having clearly spectacular physical gifts, and... also great energy, great personality. To be an 'Angel' and to be a supermodel for Victoria's Secret, you have to appeal to women, not to men.", as stated by Edward Razek on VH1 Victoria's Secret Uncovered 2004. In May 2007, the Victoria's Secret Angels which includes Adriana Lima, Selita Ebanks, Alessandra Ambrosio, Izabel Goulart and Karolina Kurkova were chosen to be part of People Magazine's annual 100 Most Beautiful People in the World. [9] The 'Angels' are among the world's highest paid models with its multi-million dollar a year contract. [7]

On November 13, 2007, Victoria's Secret Angels became the first commercial icons to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. [10]

Angels

Current
Former

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

In 1995, Victoria's Secret held its first fashion show. It received worldwide press and was called the "lingerie event of the century".

The company made history in 1999, being the first to broadcast a live fashion show online and simultaneously at Times Square. It drew 1.5 million viewers, with many others unable to view the show. The fashion show was advertised on the Super Bowl.[15][16]

In 2000, the show was held in Cannes, France during the Cannes Film Festival to raise funds for the Cinema Against AIDS charity, it was able to raise $3.5 million.

In 2001, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show made its debut on television broadcasted on abc, able to draw millions of viewers and also its share of controversy. Each time the program has aired, Federal Communications Commission gets bombarded with complaints.[17]

In 2004, instead of the annual fashion show, The Angels (Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Gisele Bundchen, Adriana Lima, and Alessandra Ambrosio) did an Angels Across America Tour, a grassroots campaign for the brand visiting four major cities, New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.[11]

The 2007 show featured a performance by the Spice Girls and gained prominence as the first American TV debut of the band after their comeback.[18]

The fashion show features mostly lingerie and a multi-million-dollar "Fantasy Bra". In 2006, Victoria's Secret's sub-brand Pink made its debut on the runway. The show has since evolved into a lavish event with elaborate costumed-lingerie, varying music and set design according to the different themes running within the show. The show attracts hundreds of celebrities, and entertainers, with special performers and/or acts every year. The giant angel wings worn by the models, as well as other wings of various forms and sizes such as butterfly, peacock, or devil wings, are Victoria's Secret's fashion trademark. The fashion show is also a meeting of today's supermodels, who are always posing in the middle, after the final walk.[16]

In the past, most of the clothing exhibited was not available to the general public, but in 2005, the show was specifically redesigned to feature clothing available to the general public through the catalogue.[17]

Year Date aired TV station Viewers (in millions) Special guests
2001[8] November 15 ABC 12.4
2002[19] November 20 CBS 10.5 Destiny's Child
2003[19] November 19 CBS 9.4 Sting, Mary J. Blige, Eve
2004 N/A N/A N/A
2005[19] December 6 CBS 8.9 Chris Botti, Ricky Martin, Seal[12]
2006[20] December 5 CBS 6.8 Justin Timberlake
2007 December 4 CBS 7.4[21] Spice Girls, Will.i.am, Seal & Heidi Klum

Sub-Brand

Victoria's Secret PINK

Further information: Pink (Victoria's Secret)

In July 2004, company executives launched PINK, a lineup of loungewear, sleepwear, and intimate apparel geared mainly towards university students.[22] Alessandra Ambrosio was named the line's first spokesperson. PINK models tour the country at university campuses.[23] The company markets to youth through MySpace, Facebook, partnerships with MTV, and youth-oriented blogs. The brand has received world wide nomination for the best in the category performance year on year over the last two years.

References in pop culture

  • "Thank God for Victoria's Secret's new underwear line!", posted by Britney Spears on her website as her pledge to fans after her controversial behavior that involved being photographed on multiple occasions without wearing any underwear. [24]
  • "Girl, change into that Victoria Secret thing that I like", a line from American R&B artist J. Holiday's hit 'Bed'
  • Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" says, "Victoria's Secret, well, their stuff's real nice/Oh, but I can buy the same damn thing on a WalMart shelf half-price/And still look sexy, just as sexy/As those models on TV/No, I don't need no designer tag/To make my man want me."

References

  1. ^ a b c [1]biz.yahoo.com. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  2. ^ a b "Limited Brands 2006 Annual Report". Retrieved 21 April. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b [2]accessed 2007-06-13.
  4. ^ a b [3]bookrags.com. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  5. ^ [4]thestar.com. Retrieved July 23, 2007.
  6. ^ Victoria's Secret catalogue no longer in pulp frictionwww.cbc.ca. Retrieved September 20, 2007.
  7. ^ a b The World's Top-Earning ModelsForbes. Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
  8. ^ a b Advertising Mascots - People - Victoria's Secret Angels tvacres.com. Retrieved September 22,2007.
  9. ^ "The Models of Victoria's Secret", People. Retrieved on 2007-05-11.
  10. ^ Victoria's Secret angels on Walk of Famesource: Mainichi Daily News. Retrieved November 14, 2007.
  11. ^ a b c [5]accessed 2007-06-13.
  12. ^ a b c d CBS Specials: Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2005source:CBS.com. Retrieved November 8,2007.
  13. ^ Meet the World's Luckiest Planesource:okmagazine.com. Retrieved November 7, 2007.
  14. ^ Gisele Bundchen, Victoria's Secret Part WaysRetrieved October 28,2007.
  15. ^ Victoria's Secret Webcastwww.fashion-planet.com. accessed 2007-09-22.
  16. ^ a b [6]accessed 2007-06-13.
  17. ^ a b "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show back on CBS".
  18. ^ Alexandria Sage (2007-11-16). "Spice Girls strut down Victoria's Secret runway". Reuters. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
  19. ^ a b c Victoria's Secret Fashion Show To Be Re-Broadcast by UPN www.ruggedelegantliving.com. Retrieved September 22, 2007
  20. ^ 'Victoria's Secret': Starved for Ratings, Too www.washingtonpost.com. Retrieved September 22, 2007
  21. ^ "Victoria's Secret Racy Pics, Models, Spice Girls Boost Fashion Show". Retrieved 5 December. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Victoria's Secret teams up with coeds
  23. ^ [7]accessed 2007-06-13.
  24. ^ Britney Speaks: 'Thank God For Victoria's Secret's New Underwear!'accessed 2007-09-13.
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