Victoria’s Secret spent the last year trying to shift from a brand associated with the male gaze to a company representing female empowerment. Many customers don’t know it made any changes at all.
Most shoppers who participated in a study conducted by the lingerie seller in February weren’t able to identify Victoria’s Secret & Co. as the brand behind recent ads of models wearing its lingerie, according to internal research documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The ads show women with different ethnicities, body types and ages mostly in natural-looking lingerie, including a pregnant Grace Elizabeth and multiracial model Paloma Elsesser.