Clare Foley

February 25th, 2021

Integrated Marketing Communication

IMC Communications Lab #3

Victoria’s Secret is a recognizable brand to people all across America, but especially women.

With 1,600 stores nationwide, this store is known for lingerie, runway shows, and observing societal

beauty norms. Victoria’s Secret (VS) first opened their doors in Palo Alto, California in 1977 with a

mission to provide a more all-inclusive lingerie buying experience that differed from department

stores. Present-day, VS has gained a reputation that has forced them to stay in the shadows of the

past and close down over 250 stores. They have found themselves being criticized for not

modernizing to current-day beauty norms and for shunning away anyone on their runway who

doesn’t look like an “angel”.

As a brand, VS started out strong by gaining popularity through the masses for women ages

25-35. They offered well-made lingerie that also came with a certain aesthetic of perfection which

could have been seen as problematic from the beginning. The start of VS’s downfall began with one

man named Ed Razek. He was an executive for VS’s parent company, L Brand, and his public

comments about never allowing a transgender woman on the runway and constant allegations of

sexual harassment and assault against him made for a recipe that put VS in danger.

VS uses informing in many different ways. Informing is defined as “advertising makes

consumers aware of new brands, educates them about a brand’s distinct features and benefits, and

facilitates the creation of positive brand images”(Andrews, 2018). VS does this by putting on their

yearly fashion show and by putting ads on channels that are mostly catered to women, like TLC, E!,

etc. VS also uses influencing as an advertising tactic. Influencing is described as “building demand
for an entire product category”(Andrews, 2018) and can be seen within VS’s ads. An example of this

is during the holidays’ VS puts out holiday-themed ads to influence customers to buy their products

as gifts because “it is important for marketers to understand the drivers of behaviors directed toward

brands”(Becerra, 2013). They usually have models dressed as holiday figures like Santa Claus and

push the narrative that this is the perfect gift for someone special. VS participates in reminding and

increasing salience within their ads and this is an important factor within their model. Reminding and

increasing salience is defined as “advertising (that) keeps a company’s brand fresh in the consumer’s

memory”(Andrews, 2018). This is done through high amounts of social media campaigns that VS

puts out on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. They tend to clutter the lingerie space, but

“clutter creates negative advertising effects”(Ha, 2015) in some instances.

VS also uses the tactic of adding value to keep their brand consistent, which has been a

problem for them. Adding value is described as something that “causes brands to be viewed as more

elegant, more stylish, more prestigious, of higher quality, and so on.”(Andrews, 2018). This element

is important to VS because they really emphasize their “perfect” models to make the brand appear

more prestigious and they have not changed that value to modernize their brand. One last element

that is important to VS is assisting other company efforts. This is the way companies use different

tools “to facilitate other marcom efforts”(Andrews, 2018). VS achieves this by having a strong brand

image and retail presence before they shut down stores.

Advertising is said to be "a deposit in the brand equity bank", but only if the advertising is

"strong" and Victoria’s Secret can struggle with this. This statement means that strong

advertisements mean having a strong brand, but VS lacks in this department due to their brand image

having weak spots without modernization. An ad that challenges this though is an ad that was put out

for Pink (VS’s “younger line”). In this ad we see women supporting one another and getting their
degrees. We also see women coding and being more relaxed in their own skin. This is a good brand

message for VS. (Appendix A)

Works Cited

Andrews, C., & Shimp, T. A. (2018). Advertising, Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated

Marketing Communication. Retrieved February 10, 2021, from

https://ebooks.cenreader.com/#!/reader/9aaa37ce-c28f-4b45-b27f-

92a2d7ab07a9/page/91d74226e220c70dd1403c4b4dd1a68a?search=clutter

Louisa Ha & Kim McCann (2008) An integrated model of advertising clutter in offline and

online media, International Journal of Advertising, 27:4, 569-592, DOI:

10.2501/S0265048708080153

P. Becerra, E. and Badrinarayanan, V. (2013), "The influence of brand trust and brand

identification on brand evangelism", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 22 No. 5/6,

pp. 371-383. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-09-2013-0394

Appendix A: