Victoria’s Secret Pink: Keeping the Brand Hot

1. Analyze the buyer decision process of a typical Pink customer. Tween and Teen girls are the major target customers for Pink. Victoria’s Secret needed to expand sales. Introducing the Pink brand was a great way to target new customers for growth. Younger girls aspire to be like older girls and are becoming more mature at a younger age. They want to wear clothes that fashionable, trendy, and hip so they are drawn in to the Pink brand because it is a suitable replacement for kiddy style clothes. There are five stages in the buying decision process of any consumer: Need recognition: Consumers are driven by the external stimuli, such as advertisement or word-of-mouth. Information search: Information could be found on the internet, magazines, media and word-of-mouth. Evaluation of alternatives: Consumers may visit shops of several brands and compare the prices, quality and the design of the items. Purchase decision: The attitude of others may influence the decision of the consumer. Post purchase behavior: The aim of Victoria’s Secret it to provide customer satisfaction so consumers will come back and tell others about their experiences.

2. Apply the concept of aspirational groups to Victoria’s Secret Pink Line .Should marketers have boundaries with regard to this concept? The main aspirational group for the Victoria’s Secret Pink line comprise of tweens and teens that are in a hurry to transform into maturity. Many critics believe that Pink is encouraging and luring young girls into buying adult lingerie and undergarments with the Pink label. Also, the issue of celebrity endorsers is part of a potential aspirational group. Consumers may aspire to be like such celebrities. I believe that marketers should defiantly have boundaries for the younger girls because some of the merchandise is inappropriate for children of that age.

3. Explain how both positive and negative consumer attitudes towards a brand like Pink develop. How might someone’s attitude towards Pink change? Positive consumer attitudes towards Victoria’s Secret Pink come from their already established reputation from their lingerie lines. Before the Pink brand was developed, Victoria’s Secret was seen as a brand for purely adults interested in racy lingerie. With Pink, Victoria’s Secret can capture the attention of younger buyers as well as provide every day clothes for already loyal customers. They were the first to develop a line of fashionable, cute lounge-wear and were able to expand their target market providing clothes for the youth that better fit their lifestyle. Also bright colors and soft cottons provide a fun and vibrant look for the brand. Negative customer attitudes develop due to a misunderstanding in Pink’s target market. Victoria’s Secret original intention was to market to the 18-30 year olds who want a cute alternative to usual loungewear. Many tweens and teens have started shopping at Pink and this makes parents uncomfortable because it will influence the girls to buy racier garments at any earlier age.

4. What role does Pink appear to be playing in the self-concept of preteens, teens and young adults? Self-concept is based on how consumers perceive themselves as well as how they think others perceive them. For tweens who are very concerned about growing up quickly, the brand may help them perceive themselves as being more mature. For teens, the issue might want to fit in and wear what other girls are wearing. Some believe that Pink plays a key role in promoting early adolescent sexuality. Pink is seen as maintaining young, fun, cute and playful images, which is associated with young adults. This has led to a trend where young girls feel that there is need to abandon their childhood in order to have fashion products from Pink’s store.