CHAP. 8 SEGMENTING AND TARGETING MARKETS

Victoria's secret has been on the market over almost 40 years. Eight years prior to founding Victoria's secret, Raymond was embarrassed when purchasing lingerie for his wife at a department store. Realizing that other men felt the same way, the man saw an opportunity to create a lingerie store designed to make men feel comfortable shopping. Unfortunately, selling lingerie to male customers was increasingly unprofitable and Victoria's secret headed the bankruptcy.

Limited Brands decided to buy the company and made Victoria's secret a multi-billion business. The major modification Limited Brands did was changing the target market. It was no longer men buying for their wives but for women themselves. Middle class women from 18 to 45 is the new target market. As time goes by, the company became wide and segmented into beauty products, underwear, swimwear, sportswear, clothing for teenage girls.

Victoria's secret target market is middle class women who particularly value their image and feel confident in their skin. It is segmenting markets on the basis of personality, motives, lifestyle, and geodemographics: psychographic segmentation. Its targeting strategy is multisegment because products are designed toward many different types of women according to their age, style and taste. For example, PINK is a sub division of Victoria's secret for teenager girls.
Victoria's secret products are created to make women feel glamorous, confident, sexy and beautiful in their skins. The company sell to those women no matter where they come from ( UK, America, Canada, United Arab Emirates etc. )

 

CHAP. 15 MARKETING COMMUNICATION

To communicate with customers, companies need to build a good promotional strategy. A promotional plan includes elements such as advertising, pubic relations, sales promotion, personal selling and social media. Victoria's secret is considered as the number one retailer of lingerie and beauty products around the world. It considerably dominates women products market. Its closest competitor are Adore Me, American Eagle Outfitters, Gap and Women's wear Daily.

Victoria's secret competitive advantage is its advertising strategy that consist to hired famous supermodels ( Victoria's secret Angles ) to promote products on TV and on Fashion shows. Every year, the company invests in fashion shows to exhibit new collections on Angels, Also, it invites artists singers to perform during the show ( Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran ).  Besides the popular annual fashion shows, VS also is part of huge american events like The Super Bowl. This year, the company created a special commercial with Angels playing football.

Furthermore, Victoria's secret always stays connected to its costumers through emails and social medias. The company also has its own catalog, website and smartphone application in which customers can order any products anytime. It promotes discounts up to 50% to customers. Gift cards and reward cards are also available.

Victoria's secret impact is worldwide because it is easily accessible in airports and tourist cities like New York and London.

CHAP. 10 PRODUCT CONCEPTS

Victoria's secret is a strategic business unit of Limited Brands. The company includes a diverse product mix which including: underwear, sleepwear, seasonal wear, accessories, swimwear and beauty cosmetics. The main strategy of Victoria's secret focuses on marketing efforts ensuring brand recognition through several tactics such as: fashion shows, celebrity endorsements, catalogs and advertising. Currently, the company sells to customers in over 80 countries though their direct website. VS always provide good quality and variety on their products, for it makes them a brand loyalty which the majority prefers Victoria's secret over the competitors. It dominates its world with modern-style, fashion-inspired collections, prestige fragrances, cosmetics, celebrated supermodels and world famous runway shows. Victoria's secret products range from intimate apparel and hosiery to loungewear, body care products, fragrances, cosmetics and fitness wear. 

Furthermore, Victoria's secret expanded its product line by creating PINK which is targeted only toward teen girls. PINK provides underwear but also clothing ( shoes, sportswear, swimwear ).

At Victoria's secret there are two ways to shop, you can shop by collection or by style. For example, to shop lingerie items, customers have the opportunity to chose among many product lines which is divided by styles and collections. Currently, VS lingerie collections are Very Sexy, Dream Angels and Designer collection. Also, VS lingerie style are Bras & panties, Bustiers & Corsets, Teddies, Babydolls & slips, Garters & garter slips, Gowns & Kimonos and Fragrance.

Victoria's secret is trying to be the dominant young, sexy and sophisticated lingerie and beauty brand in the world. The company is also known for setting trends and creating demand through innovative designs. With presence in almost all major mall in USA and tourist destinations such as shopping centers, airports and major cities, VS aspires to become a destination brand, meaning a customer would be tempted to visit malls just too see the VS store.