Mystery of Victoria’s Secret
Wonder to know that the world’s famous brand Victoria’s secret is at its utter failure position due to their inferior marketing strategies.
An American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer, Victoria’s Secret name is recognized over the world for its name and quality of the products. Starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels they were able to establish their name in the market and retain that for many more years.
How Victoria’s Secret has started their journey
In 1977 in the Stanford Shopping Center. Roy Raymond was the initiator of this great idea. An incident that happened to him had led to this business idea generation.
Roy Raymond was married to Gaye Raymond and they had a happily wedded life. One day Roy had to buy some lingerie items for his wife from the store and while selecting the items he felt so embarrassed and awkward when a man picks up ladies items from a common store. Upon realization, he identified that there is a great business opportunity for this niche market and he thought of catering the same.
He chose to make a brand that was centred around men purchasing ladies’ garments and appropriately named it Victoria’s Secret. The name is a reference to Queen Victoria to repeat the feeling of respectability of that period. He didn’t need the brand to seem unpleasant in any capacity.
The business was rapidly moving forward with several new daily customers and Roy was able to open up another three stores within a couple of years. But in 1982, Raymond decided to offer Victoria’s Secret to Wexner for $1 million dollars. That was one of the major failure decisions he had ever taken in his life.
Would it be success after the change of ownership ?
Just after the taking over Wexner was able to boost up the market share and profits with flying colours. It made a large portion of a billion dollars of benefits. The new owner has identified new potentials and started their new concept of ” Victoria’s secrets Fashion Show “. After a few years, it was a privilege for the models to take part in the said fashion show. The lingerie business was expanded to clothing and beauty products as well.
In the United States, Victoria’s secrets accounted for one-third of all purchases in the intimate apparel industry. They focused the tag line as ” Angels in you”.Though It created lots of sensation, in the beginning, this tagline itself became of the reasons for the lack of sales of this brand. Because the competitors claimed that the products have to be matched to ordinary human beings and should not suit for extraordinary angels.
How they failed their marketing strategies ?
Raymond the founder, was getting exhausted from this brand and needed to make something new without any preparation. So rather than identifying his core competencies, he thought of moving to another new segment by selling his own created existing brand. He moved $850 thousand and put it into another brand that made toys and garments for youngsters. But it was an utter failure. He would have identified his core competencies before moving to the new level
At the same time, he would have spent more time on identifying the market and made some amendments before moving to sell the brand just for 1Mn Dollars. Without having the proper knowledge on your own co competencies and the strength of the company you own, should not take any momentous decisions pertaining to the brand
When it related to the current business performance, Victoria’s Secret has not differentiated their products according to the client’s wish. Without stagnating at the same business model, have to thoroughly research the requirements and the desires of the client portfolio. Presently we can launch digital strategies to drive the clients towards more purchase intentions. More useful details can be collected easily at your fingertips due to this advance improvement of digital drive forcers.
Should align all the content and other marketing stuff according to clients’ preferences. If we are not making a new move with modern technology and make a difference, the whole company will be retarding slowly.
