Victoria Secret - PESTEL analysis

POLITICAL:

• A statement from VS’s chief marketing officer Ed Razek made around transgender and plus size models not being included in the VS fashion show as the show is a ‘fantasy’ and they are not part of it. This got a lot of hate and backlash.
• VS released a range under the slogan Bright Young Things which features tops and thongs with the slogans “Enjoy the view”, “Wild”, “Call Me” and “Now or Never”. VS boss claimed the range let 15 and 16 year old girls be “older” which has sparked controversy between parents who are accusing VS of “sexualising our daughters” and “making it hard to raise wholesome children”. This is the first time they’ve been pulled up for there target audience being too young.

ECONOMIC:

• From 2005 to 2015, clothing, footwear and accessories purchases dropped from 45 to 38 percent within teenagers, according to Piper Jaffray’s latest teen spending review, published in October 2015. Teen's are not only spending less on fashion they’re spending less in general  Generation Z has lived through the aftermath of 9/11 and experienced war and an economic recession. This whirlwind of an upbringing has made teens them “more self-aware, self-reliant and driven,” according to a 2015 survey by Ernst & Young. It has also made them more cautious and socially aware of what they are buying, why they are buying it and were its comes from. Teen spending in the US fell 31 percent from 1997 to 2014, according to The Futures Company, a global consultancy. “There’s simply an awareness that we’re in a slow growth economy,” explains Rob Callender, the company’s director of youth insights. Nessel agrees: “They’ve seen how hard life can be, and so they don’t want to be in that position themselves.” Generation Z also scrutinizes brands more carefully: “They’re much more ambitious about going out and learning the back stories of various brands, to make sure that the choices they make with their fairly limited funds are ones that they feel comfortable making,” says Callender.  In a survey by The Futures Company, the percentage of teenagers who agreed with the statement, “I care a lot about whether my clothes are in style,” dropped from 65 percent in 1997 to 47 percent in 2014. For today’s youth fashion is less about fitting in, and more about standing out. Making sure they have their own identity and making choices that reflect that identity. “They’re interested in saying, ‘I have chosen this brand because this brand shares certain commonalities with my outlook and my lifestyle and my priorities,’” says Callender. Nessel agrees that today’s teenagers are more “altruistic” and “entrepreneurial” than the millennial before them. “They’re looking for brands that have personality and authenticity,” she says. Quotes from - https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/tapping-generation-z

SOCIAL:

• 59.6 million fans on Instagram alone
• Victoria’s Secret was the dominant retail brand on social media in 2017, receiving more than 352 million cross-platform actions (likes, comments, retweets, etc.) across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The lingerie brand’s total accounted for 28% of all cross-platform actions among retailers, according to the State of Social report from Shareablee. Facebook appears to be losing ground among retailers and their customers. The estimated number of retail impressions on Facebook fell 33%, as did the number of Facebook actions. However, the average number of retail Twitter actions grew by 64%, while the number of Instagram actions rose 14%. - https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/news-briefs/victoria-s-secret-generates-28-of-all-retail-social-media-actions
• “The way we even talk about sexiness has shifted now — the idea is sexiness isn’t something reliant on being a glamazon or having long hair, there’s lots of different kinds of sexy,” said Cora Harrington, editor of the Lingerie Addict blog. “The one vision Victoria’s Secret has of sexy is out of place.” Or, as Candace Corlett, president of consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail put it, “Are they aware there’s this thing called #MeToo out there?” - https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/victorias-secret-is-still-advertising-to-women-like-its-1999
• The #MeToo era’s widespread denouncement of sexual assault and harassment has nudged that decline, said Ted Marzilli, CEO of data products for YouGov. While Marzilli concedes that Victoria’s Secret’s sales troubles predate #MeTooand #Time’sUp, these movements, he told me, “have likely made some consumers think twice about what they value in a wardrobe and in a brand. Politics and style might seem like distant cousins, but they’re increasingly intertwined in a highly politicized world.” - https://www.forbes.com/sites/barbarathau/2018/04/26/is-the-metoo-era-hurting-victorias-secret-two-branding-experts-strongly-disagree/#6e20f25059c6

ENVIROMENTAL:

• Rated ‘not good enough’ on 'GOOD ON YOU’ based on its environmental impact and labour conditions 
• "Victoria's Secret has achieved the E-label. This is our lowest possible sustainability score, and Victoria's Secret has earned it by communicating nothing concrete about the policies for environment, carbon emissions or labor conditions in low-wages countries. For us as consumers, it is unclear whether Victoria's Secret is committed to sustainability or not. “ quote from https://rankabrand.org/sustainable-lingerie-underwear/Victoria%27s+Secret