The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Caused a Valentine’s Day Stumble
Like most retailers, Victoria’s Secret & Co. is headed cautiously into 2025, predicting sales declines for the first quarter and then a rebound later in the year.
But as the lingerie giant negotiates around a more cautious consumer, colder weather and tariff uncertainty out of the Trump White House, Hillary Super’s longer-term plans are coming into focus.
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Super — who jumped from Savage x Fenty to become chief executive officer of Victoria’s Secret last September — said she has a lot to work with.
“We are building from a position of strength as the largest intimate apparel company in the world,” the CEO told analysts on a conference call Thursday. “In North America, we have approximately 20 percent market share, 25 million active customers, and 38 million loyalty members. We have the second-largest brand following in the world on social media with 88 million followers on Instagram alone.”
And while the North American intimates market declined slightly in the fourth quarter, Super said the company outpaced the market for the second-straight quarter.
To capitalize on that momentum and the company’s leader status, Super has put the company on what she’s calling the Path to Potential.
“We are playing offense, leaning into our core strength, and unlocking new opportunities,” she said.
The plan is made up of four key strategies that has the company:
Recommitting to the Pink brand.
Reasserting the company’s authority in bras.
Looking to grow the beauty, sport and swim businesses.
And updating the company’s go-to-market approach, reducing production lead times for some categories, while also tweaking branding strategies.
“As culture, technology and shopping behaviors shift, so must our go-to-market strategy,” Super said. “By staying true to our brand DNA while adapting how we engage, inspire and serve, we will deepen connections with existing customers and attract new customers while strengthening loyalty and driving long-term growth.
“One of the ways we will do that is by creating stronger differentiation between Victoria’s Secret and Pink in everything, from product to marketing to experience,” she said. “Today, the lines between the two brands are blurred.”
The company is moving toward an org chart that has brand presidents leading product-facing functions at Victoria’s Secret, Pink and in the beauty business.
While these changes take time, the company is operating in what’s turned into a tougher environment day-to-day.
The firm forecast a roughly 2 to 4 percent decline for first-quarter sales, ramping up to a flat to up 2 percent performance for the full year, with sales of $6.2 billion to $6.3 billion.
Some of that is the consumer climate, but Super said there were also some things the company could have done better.
“We pulled marketing spend into Q3 for the fashion show” in October, she said. “One of the hindsights coming out of the fashion show is that that halo in terms of traffic was about eight to 10 weeks. I think we pulled back a little too far on marketing, and we should have had some other event, whether it was around sport or Valentine’s Day in January, to really drive that heat and awareness and traffic.
“We didn’t buy Valentine’s Day big enough,” she said. “So we blew through sleep, which was one of the big drivers of holiday. We blew through it in a couple of weeks and basically sold out by the time we got to the beginning of February.”
But building in the fashion industry is about doing, learning and moving forward.
Super said the fashion show was “a huge success” and said there would be a “spike” in marketing spending in the fall with the next iteration. But she was noncommittal on just what it will look like.
“We are still working through that,” she said. “There will be some activation of some sort that is significant in the back half of the year, and we’re working through a number of options around that. So, there’ll be more to share.”
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