Victoria’s Secret Should Be Kept Under Wraps

 

Men and women alike have had their bloomers in a bundle over the latest Victoria’s Secret spring break line “Bright Young Things.” For starters, there’s nothing more that a college bred gal likes to be called than a “thing.” The company claims it is an extension to the PINK line aimed at college girls. Parents are in a tizzy because it seems the company is hoping for a windfall from an even younger set.

“When somebody’s 15 or 16 years old, what do they want to be?” Victoria’s Secret CFO Stuart Burgdoerfer said at a conference in January, according to Business Insider. “They want to be older, and they want to be cool like the girl in college, and that’s part of the magic of what we do at PINK.”

 

It saddens me that society continues to objectify women of all ages.

It saddens me that women buy into this, literally and figuratively.

It saddens me that no one in the C-suite connects the dots between the sexualization of girls and rape culture.

It saddens me that companies stoop to profit from tarnishing what short span of innocence kids have.

It saddens me that no one stops and simply says, “What we’re perpetuating is a really bad idea. Let’s take a different creative path.”

It saddens me that mothers of sons think this isn’t their issue.

I am the mother of sons. I always joke that first and foremost, I don’t want my boys to grow up to be assholes. I’m not going to wax about raising kids and parenting in a modern paradigm. There are valid points others have made, and this is a perpetual point of contention for every generation. As a mother of boys and as a marketing consultant, I want to instead share a story about lingerie, a creative team, and consumer research.

Some background: I have a marketing consulting business. One of the things I do for my clients is conduct consumer research. I was working with a lingerie company once that was in the process of rebranding and rejuvenating its product line. Like with many companies, the brand was tired, dated, and out of touch among consumers. We decided to test this out, of course. I flew to points around the country to moderate focus groups with women. I talked to women to garner every iota I could about their buying/spending habits, fashion mojo, brand preferences, and emotional connection to fashion and lingerie specifically. I uncovered a good bit of anecdotal data to inform the creative team.

The team got to work drawing and designing. Presentations were made. Egos were stroked. Palettes picked. Messaging tweaked.

New products. New packaging. New ads. New sales records. The peeps in the C-Suite were veritable Mr. Burns wringing their hands together as if ancient Greek coins were flowing through them. It’s true. There was a ghastly amount of talk of profits and money.

Throughout the creative process I was tapped to give input and provide data to support design and brand decisions. The creative team kept coming up with racy, inappropriate taglines that made the copywriters chuckle and the account reps blush. They designed lingerie that was not fitting of the brand and messaging that wasn’t compelling to the target audience. Throughout it all I chimed in stating the research showed us that taking a different direction would be more appropriate. They laughed and accused me of being uptight. In fact, a tish of uptight was spot on for this particular brand.

The products and packaging were just not right. The entire creative team disregarded the very thorough and very expensive research. I suspect they planned their own creative coup all along. The ad campaign was downright vulgar.

We took the campaign concepts on the road to test their appeal. I knew the answers before I asked a single question. Women in subsequent focus groups hated everything. There were unsavory cliches peppered throughout the ads, and tasteless tongue-in-cheek jabs. Pretty much everything about the project appealed to the jackass, frat boy set. 

I wrote up my report, indicating the direction was all wrong and that follow up focus groups confirmed that. The creative lead turned as red as the trampy lipstick on his ads when he yelled at me for injecting my “personal issues” on his design. Never mind that I had hours of focus group footage recorded to substantiate my position. This was a guy who was used to getting his way, consumers be damned. And so he changed nothing.

It was time to present to the big wigs. 

They hooted and hollered. They cracked jokes and were smug as hell. The few women in the meeting balked. They were over ruled. In the end, the products, rebranding, and ad campaign launched.

Consumers were pissed. Product prices were slashed. The product line bombed. The company deserted all efforts to modernize a tired brand. Some women from the team quit. What was once a storied brand that just needed some oomph died a lackluster death.

I wonder if the creative team went on to work for Victoria’s Secret.