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 has a constant new product development, the brand has branched out and is no longer just a lingerie brand, it also sells, clothes, pyjamas, sportswear/swimwear as well as cosmetics and perfumes. They have a variety of products under their name. They, like other brands come out with seasonal limited edition products, like Halloween or Christmas themed underwear. 

They are constantly releasing a new product whether that be a new perfume, e.g Scandalous Dare Eau de Parfum by Victoria’s secret which is retailed at £52.73 which is Victoria's secret newest release, the ad is at the top of the page. This is one of the many scents that Victoria's secret does, as well as body sprays and role on perfumes. The brand has also branched out and created PINK which is aimed at the younger women, between the ages of 15 to 25. PINK sells underwear and clothes, it's not as sexy as Victoria's secret which is normal because it's aimed at younger girls, it is also cheaper than Victoria's secret.