EYE: Aerie, Target Maintain Body Positive Ad Campaigns As VS Stock Price Slumps 50% In 2018

EYE: Aerie, Target Maintain Body Positive Ad Campaigns As VS Stock Price Slumps 50% In 2018

American Eagle's Aerie brand continues to resonate deeply with women, while the world's biggest lingerie brand Victoria's Secret struggles. Aerie maintains its no Photoshop, real women with great personalities positioning in their Spring/Summer 2018 campaign, shot in Panama by Ali Mitton. 

Aerie launched its #AerieREALgirls LOVE THE SWIM YOU'RE IN campaign, again donating $1 for each Instagram real woman lovin' her body post up to $25,000 to the National Eating Disorders Association as a followup to last year's $15K donation. VS won't touch these topics with a 10 ft pole, as I reminded us in the launch of Rihanna's new lingerie collection. 

CNN reported on May 10: 

Hey Victoria. This isn't exactly a secret. But nobody seems to be buying your lingerie. And that's a huge problem.

Far away from the glory days of being a young company on the move, L Brands -- the parent company of Victoria's Secret -- has the unwelcome honor of being the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500, down almost 50% in 2018, reported CNN.

VS is not the first brand to struggle with maturity and new competition. Consider what The Gap has endured. But there's a grave danger in thinking that you can create the most expensive bras in a mass market world, when income stagnation is as real as the #metoo movement. VS is off kilter from its brand positioning to its price points, and that's before many women call VS PINK's design too juvenile. PINK has been the growth engine for the lingerie revenue stream at L Brands. Now sales are down for the first time two months in a row for March and April 2018.