Victoria's Secret Marketing mix

VICTORIA'S SECRET

The start of the famous lingerie company:

Victoria's secret is an American designer,  manufacturer and marketer for women's high end lingerie.  According to Forbes, Victoria's secret revenue for the fiscal year which ended on the 31st of January 2015 reached a massive $7.2 billion. It is America's largest retailer for lingerie. Although Victoria's secret is America's leading brand and has little to no competitors there, it is a very different story over in Europe. Victoria's secret has a much smaller presence in Europe, but the company is slowly expanding. The first Victoria's secret was opened in 1977 by Roy Raymond.

This image is a photo from the debut catalogue in 1977;

Click here for the link to Victoria's secret

Victoria's secret main aim is to help women feel confident and sexy in their own bodies, although that can be seen as quite contradictory considering all their models are stick thin. It is a very feminine, sexy and, glamorous brand. Their advertising is very seductive, daring and provocative. 

Victoria's secret is a huge brand, known worldwide, it also has it's own unique marketing mix.

What is the marketing mix?

According to CIM, "The ‘Marketing Mix’ is a term used to describe the combination of tactics used by a business to achieve its objectives by marketing its products or services effectively to a particular target customer group."

It can be referred to as the 4 Ps' which includes; Product, Price, Promotion and Place. The 4 Ps' then become the 7 Ps' when you include; People, Process, and Physical Evidence. This is known as the extended Marketing Mix.

  

The first P is Product:

• A product is an idea, a service, a good or a combination of these three. Victoria's secret has a very big product mix, it has acquired a variety of different products, it sells; lingerie, loungewear, sportswear, perfumes, cosmetics... It seems that the brand focuses on a certain body type as part of its branding, as we can see from its brand ambassadors, who are all highly airbrushed supermodels also known as Victoria's secret Angels. The brand doesn’t cater to plus sized women and it has also been criticised for heavy usage of Photoshop to make its models look even thinner than they already are. Unlike other brands who talk about being pretty at all sizes and every woman being uniquely beautiful which is the case of Dove who actually based a whole campaign about body image, Victoria’s Secret doesn’t seem to be relating to all consumers’ sentiments.

As we can see from both of these images, Victoria's secret has chosen to only portray a certain body type for their "love your body" campaign whereas Dove changed it up and used real models of all different sizes for a campaign called "real beauty". Dove is trying to show that beauty is not a size, and big or small a women is beautiful.

Another unique aspect of Victoria's secret branding and packaging is, the famous "angel wings" first introduced at the 1998 Victoria's secret Fashion Show. They host a Fashion show every year, it's very famous, and it also includes many famous guest performers such as Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. To make it more unique, they host the show in a different country every year and they have a "Fantasy bra" that is made by jewellers with lots of diamonds and other jewels. Last year the fantasy bra cost 2 million dollars and the show was hosted in New York.

The packaging is pink, they have pink stripped bags with black writing. The pink packaging was well chosen as it's a symbol of femininity, love, and sentimentality, the black just adds a touch of sexiness.
Their models are a very big part of the look of the brand. Victoria's secret hires very famous and very beautiful models that can help promote the brand. Some of the models that have modelled for their show include Miranda Kerr, Kendall Jenner and Candice Swanepoel.

Victoria's secret price, promotion and place

Price:

Victoria’s Secret is targeting the middle class which is also reflected on the prices. However, they still have  different pricing strategies  depending on the collections. Victoria’s Secret prices tend to be higher than the Pink collection as this latter one is dedicated to teens, college students; younger women in general.         

Whereas Victoria's Secret is more of a high end underwear brand. It's pricier than most underwear brands, such as Etam or Adore me. According to the official website a Victoria's secret bra price can vary anywhere from £30 which would be their basic sexy tee push up bra,all the way to £60 which is the Dream angels push up bra. Their lingerie can be very affordable but also very exclusive, with prices ranging from £20 to £453. We can see that Victoria's secret caters for both middle class and high class women. PINK on the other hand is all affordable, with bra prices ranging from £25 to 32£. The reason for the high prices in Victoria's secret is because of the quality for one, then their underwear is modelled by famous models, which makes the item somewhat in high demand. Also the brand in itself is very famous so the customer is also paying for the brand.

This is the brands most expensive piece of lingerie, the lace gown,  priced at £453.

Also, Vitoria's secret has very frequent promotions and deals online and in-store. The deals could be anything from 50% bras or 5 for £25 on panties. They sometimes will say with any purchase of £70 you get a free tote. They try and entice their customers to buy the products. Also during the fashion they come out with exclusive merchandise written Victoria's secret fashion Show and the year. This exclusive merchandise costs sometimes close to 150£. 

Although Victoria's secret is a leading brand in the US which explains why it can have high prices, it is not quite the case in the UK. Even though there isn't an actually leading underwear retailer as such, department stores like Debenhams, or House of Fraser have an underwear section which as a multitude of different brands, such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger or even their own brand. Also, lots of stores have an underwear section, this is the case for Hollister, H&M and other high street names. This gives the customer a wide choice of brand, price and design. Another brand that leads in the underwear industry in the UK is M&S, they aim more towards the older women between 30 and 80, but even young women can find a basic bra. And price wise M&S sells its lingerie at around £20 which is cheaper then Victoria's secret.

The UK may not have many Victoria's Secret stores, but it does have one of the most exclusive lingerie brands ever, "Rigby and Peller" this brand tailors for the Queen and has extremely exclusive prices. There are only 9 stores nation wide. The prices go anywhere from £50 upwards. 

Promotion:

According to the Economic Times, promotion is defined as ' the entire set of activities, which communicate the product, brand or service to the user. The idea is to make people aware, attract and induce to buy the product, in preference over others.' 

Victoria's Secret promotes itself like any other brand; through advertising. Victoria's Secret seeds millions of dollars when it comes to this; the Fashion Show alone costs them over 10 million dollars according to fashion magazines and business papers, such as The Retail Gazette. 

They promote themselves through social media: 

• Twitter (@VictoriasSecret) 
• Facebook (Victoria's Secret, VS PINK) 
• Instagram (@victoriassecret, @vspink) 
• Youtube channel (Victoria's Secret) with ads, interviews, previews and workout videos.

Through social media they announce their annual sales, limited time offers, new collections and products. They also try and get the customer involved by asking them to tag them in photos of their purchases. This is also a good promotional stunt, because the customer is then doing the advertising for them.

They also announce the upcoming events, for example the famous Victoria's Secret fashion show which is a promotional stunt that gets everyone talking. As the Financial Buzz has stated, they don't really promote their product during the Show. The show just helps the brand branch out into the entertainment industry which gives them a little more than the average brand. 
They have a lot of celebrity endorsement, they involve big names to appear on the show and perform at the same time that the Angels are walking down the catwalk. The Angels are also a big part of the advertisement. They help a lot with the promotion through meet ups, interviews and even by promoting the brand through their own personal social media accounts. 

Victoria's Secret also has its own playlist on spotify “train like an Angel” and multiple workout videos on Youtube or Facebook to help people get the body of a Victoria's Secret Angel which the actual Angels get involved in. 

A Victoria's Secret Angel is the best promotional tactic for the brand as they are everything a young girl aspires to look like, they are tall, beautiful, skinny, tanned sexy women who have incredible bodies. They are everything girls look up to and aspire to be like which is probably one of the biggest reasons why this brand is so successful. As well as always looking perfect, the Angels add a touch of fun and quirkiness to the brand during the fashion show as well as a lot of sexiness and glamour. There is also a section on the official website called   

Also, as part of their promotion they include free gifts with a purchase, like a free tote or wash bag with a purchase over a certain amount. 

Victoria's Secret people, process and physical

People:

Victoria's Secret and its sub-brands branches are aiming their products at women of every age, thanks to the creation of PINK which reaches out to younger girls and Victoria's Secret Sports that aims to women of any age. PINK was created in 2002 targeting teenage girls and young women. 

Victoria's secret staff provide excellent customer care from the moment you walk into the store to the moment you walk out. The store provides a lot of seating around the store for the men to take a seat while the women look around, because the brand knows how uncomfortable men feel in a lingerie shop. Also the staff are mostly all women which helps you feel more comfortable, it's a very personal and fun experience. The staff help you find your size and style by measuring you and asking you what you like/want. They help make shopping for underwear and lingerie a pleasurable experience. Also when you go into the fitting rooms, they will tell you there names and tell you to press a button if you are in need of assistance.

Victoria's Secret has especially trained their staff so that they can give the best advice, and service towards the customer. All staff worldwide have been trained with the US-know how. The staff are made to learn about all their products so that they can recommend the best to their customers.

Also a Victoria's Secret customer can benefit from an Angel Card. There are 3 different versions of it, the Angel which is the basic card where the customer will benefit from a gift on their Birthday, free shipping on purchases that include bras; and exclusive shopping rewards. The second card is the Angel VIP card that you upgrade to once you've reached 500 points, with this card the customer will benefit from all of the above plus insider access and invitations to exclusive events throughout the year. The last card available is for any customer who reaches 1000, this card is called Angel Forever, which offers in addition to everything else a thank you gift every year.

Process:

This means how the service or product is delivered to the client/customer.

Throughout the years the brand has slowly opened up stores around the world. The problem that is still apparent is when someone orders online, it comes from the United States, so the customer will still need to pay tax on top of what they have already spent. The delivery is free on orders over 75£ which encourages the customer to spend that little bit extra but they will still need to pay tax if they do not live in the US. The brand allows you to track your package, which always gives a bit of reassurance. 

Also, they are planning on shipping all products ordered from Europe straight from the producer to the distribution centre to improve the delivery process. They are even planning on having a base in Europe to cut the costs, the base would be in Germany. They are looking for a cost effective way for transportation. None of this has got a fixed date, it is just ideas, but it would be a good way to improve the delivery process and maybe even open up to a bigger clientele, because then people will buy from them without having to worry about tax.

Like many brands or companies, Victoria's Secret produces it's products abroad in Asian countries where the workforce is cheap and the materials are also inexpensive. From there they import in masses to reduce the cost.