Victoria's Secret Rebranded - a Bad Strategy case study - Part 2

Part two of two

Read Part one here.

Rehabilitating a brand’s image.

In order to shift people’s perception of the Victoria’s Secret brand, the company tried to make a 180-degree turn by offering every kind of bra for every kind of woman. They took inclusion to the max.

They replaced the statuesque “Angels” with a diverse group of ambassadors called “The VS Collective.” This group featured activist and soccer star Megan Rapinoe, actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and advocate/model Paloma Elsesser, among others. However, the job of the VS Collective seems to be to whitewash the company’s history rather than confront it head-on. Victoria’s Secret has had many opportunities to address its problems with open eyes and a humble heart, yet they’ve chosen not to. Back in 2018, competitor ThirdLove took out a full-page New York Times Ad calling out VS for its toxic messaging and culture. Rather than rise to the occasion, Victoria’s Secret hid behind the illusion of change by firing their problematic director and calling it a day.

Throughout 2021, as VS began to proclaim and market its new brand identity, skepticism among women grew. There appeared to be more talk than action, with patchy rollouts that made the announcements seem disingenuous. As late as October 2021, the VS website still showcased bombshell-style imagery with nary a curve or inclusive image to be seen. While the website today has been updated with a range of bodies, skin tones, and identities (including their first transgender woman, to be specific), all this imagery still feels clunky and unbelievable.

The solution?

For women like me, who value a killer bra almost as much as their integrity as pro-women activists, we want to believe that Victoria’s Secret can be rehabilitated. With Wexner and known toxic perpetrators gone from the company, former customers like me are looking for signs that Victoria’s Secret cares about the women they claim to serve and isn’t just offering lip service to these critical issues. So far, despite its proclamations of a “revolutionary transformation,” Victoria’s Secret has failed to convince me that they genuinely take responsibility for the damage they have done. By moving forward with a rebrand without issuing a sincere mea culpa for the harm they have caused, it seems as though Victoria’s Secret is trying to put a fresh coat of paint on an old house and calling it new.

While that strategy might fool some for now, it’s terribly insulting to women as a long-term approach. Women don’t want or need performative displays; we want and deserve accountability and ownership of the problem. And we needed that BEFORE Victoria’s Secret launched its new identity. How else could we believe in their sincerity? But Victoria’s Secret didn’t do that. It’s not just the Victoria’s Secret “Angels” that needed to fall; it’s the VS ego, the excuses, and the facade that need to go, too.

It’s nearly 2022, and since Victoria’s Secret still hasn’t apologized, I’ve done it for them.

Here’s the NYT Full Page Ad that Victoria’s Secret should have written in 2018 in response to the critical ad by ThirdLove.

Copy reads as follows:

An open letter to all women from Victoria’s Secret.

Dear Women,

We owe you an apology.

No excuses.

No sweeping our mistakes under the rug or ignoring them altogether.

We are breaking our toxic communication patterns.

We recognize that the history of the Victoria’s Secret brand is problematic—that the messages we sent throughout the past four decades contributed to a toxic view of women, body shaming, eating disorder culture, sexism, transphobia, racism, and misogyny.

It is a legacy we can’t erase.

That’s why Victoria's Secret has sent itself to “rehab.” We’ve taken a hard look at ourselves and are here to admit our wrongs as we try to make amends to all of you who have been hurt by our actions.

It would be easy to say that the world has changed and we were simply slow to keep up. But, as you know, from the very beginning, the Victoria’s Secret brand was built by a man for men. The problems existed well before the #MeToo movement, before the years promoting our “Angels,” before the over-sexualization of women in our ads, before our former owner’s awful connection to Jeffrey Epstein, and before our previous director made those despicable remarks about plus-sized and trans bodies.

The rot ran deep and for far too long in the Victoria’s Secret company you grew up with.

We acknowledge that you’ve tried to tell us how we were hurting you, and we have done a disservice by brushing off your feedback or minimizing our culpability in the wider social issues we’ve negatively impacted. When one of our competitors called out our former marketing director for his ugly remarks in a full-page letter just like this one, we acted quickly to remove him from VS but bristled at the critique. We didn’t do enough to address the issues back then.

In the intervening years, we’ve worked hard to bring on a new team to help lead us toward a better version of our company—one that feels more inclusive of bodies, ethnicity, gender, and identity. We believe that the women working in leadership positions here at VS are changing us from the inside out.

Over the past ten months, you may have already noticed some of these changes reflected in our advertising, website, and social media accounts. You may have heard about our new VS Voices podcast amplifying a cross-section of women in leadership or heard about our VS Collective featuring diverse voices like Megan Rapinoe and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, among others.

But we don’t expect a trophy for these significant changes in our business. We have not yet earned a place at the leadership table with our contemporaries, and this letter isn’t about promoting ourselves, our initiatives, or our new products.

This letter is the apology and acknowledgment of wrongdoing you all deserve, not a step we are begrudgingly taking to quickly move past our mistakes and pivot to selling you comfortable thong underwear with a clear conscience. We acknowledge that this is only the first step and not one to be brushed past.

We want to thank all of you for not giving up on us and for holding us accountable all these years. It’s thanks to you powerful women that the world has come this far. Your tenacity to speak up has finally brought us to this point of reconciliation.

Thank you for teaching us that sexiness has nothing to do with being a “bombshell” and everything to do with how you feel in your skin. We hear you, and you are right.

There is nothing fashionable about being late to the women’s empowerment party, but we are here, showing up in our imperfections.

We now understand that we cannot ever empower you because no one has the authority to give or take away the power that’s already inside you. It’s always been yours.

So no, we are not here claiming to empower women; we are inviting you.

We are not the same company that sold you that great push-up bra back in 2001. Today’s Victoria’s Secret is so much more than a sexy lingerie company.

We invite you to give us a chance to prove it.

Sincerely,

The Team behind the New Victoria’s Secret