Victoria's Secret

: a case study of maintaining brand relevance

Abstract

Victoria’s Secret, which belongs to L Brands group, is the leading lingerie brand in its home market, US and globally, which has substantially shaped the industry of underwear in the last decades and successfully expanded into other product categories, such as swimwear, sportswear, apparel and beauty. It has been performing well financially in the resent years under the management of its CEO, Sharen Turney, who has left the brand in the beginning of 2016 and delegated to Leslie Wexner, the CEO of L Brands. However, in the last two years some questionable aspects of Victoria’s Secret marketing have been raised by media, competitors and consumers – the brand has gained a significant amount of negative publicity regarding its brand values, based on its reluctance to cater to plus-size segment and the accusations of promoting wrong body ideals and sexist stereotypes among women. From brand management prospective, these negatives could become reasons not to buy Victoria’s Secret products among consumers, which may make further brand relevance problematic. In order to facilitate brand relevance maintenance, the case protagonist, Victoria’s Secret CEO, Leslie Wexner is faced with a dilemma – either to make Victoria’s Secret enter a plus-size segment or introduce new corporate social initiatives to the brand. The students are supposed to analyze and discuss the case study, using company background and market conditions and, on the basis of pros and cons for each strategy, solve the particular dilemma.

Date of Award	19 Jul 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Paulo Gonçalves Marcos (Supervisor)