My COVID-19 Customer Journey with Victoria’s Secret: From Casual Customer to Loyal Brand Advocate

When COVID-19 crashed down upon companies and consumers alike in mid-March, every company you ever provided your sacred email address to came a-knocking on your virtual door. Many (who you hadn’t heard from in years) barged in to tell you how they would go about doing business with you, how they would keep you and their employees safe, and what to expect in the days and weeks ahead. That was all fine and good, of course, but some did it better than others. I tracked one company’s COVID-19 response with zeal, as both a casual customer and a corporate communicator. My customer journey with Victoria’s Secret went something like this:

• You had me at “free.” Somewhere between high school and college, Victoria’s Secret nabbed my email address. For years, VS had enticed me to enter its store to redeem a monthly(ish) coupon for a “free panty,” arguably one of the company’s most exciting and long-running promotional tools. Of course, once in the store, my eyes would meet something else I needed and I would leave with more than I bargained for. But at this point, I wasn’t a loyal customer by any means. Sans free stuff, I wouldn’t be in the store to begin with.
  

• Here comes COVID-19 and an avalanche of emails. Sure, I bought things in the VS store for years, but I never really felt like part of the fam until COVID-19 revealed I was in fact, their target demographic, and I liked what the company had to say. From the beginning, VS passed the vibe check. Both VS proper and its offshoot brand tailored to teenagers and college students, PINK, emphasized values over profits. VS shut down stores in the name of safety, geared up for eager online shoppers, and didn’t shy away from addressing the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty everyone was facing. Of course, the company wanted to keep selling its products, but email marketers understood that delicate balance between crisis communications and digital marketing. With Maslow’s hierarchy in mind, people probably didn’t need sexy lingerie in quarantine (but to each her own), which is why VS emphasized comfy pajamas for all in the mandatory “work from home” camp and continued to keep it hopeful and positive in each communication it sent my way.
  

• Put your money where your mask is. As the months dripped on, VS’ crisis response kept me actively opening its emails. Not only was the company keeping it real with communications, it also stepped up in a big way to do its part as a manufacturer. It created several types of masks for its distinct brands, seemingly made from the same fabric used to create its infamous bras and panties. In June, it donated 50,000 masks to Good360, “a global leader in product philanthropy and purposeful giving” to do its part as a company weathering the storm with its customers. Throughout the spring and summer of the pandemic, VS continued to step up to acknowledge the situation, emphasize the products and services that could best serve its customers, and pool its resources in a unique way—aligned to its business model and customer base—to help those in need.

Most companies reading the tea leaves know that COVID-19 is here to stay through the fall and winter. VS continues to adapt email communications to current circumstances and create an emotional bond with its customers. The email message below to its PINK community is testament to the caring and creative messaging it has fostered and maintained for months:

At the end of the day, VS is a business and to sustain itself, it needs to market and sell its product, no matter the state of the world. But the care and grace it has employed in delicately selling products that, let’s face it, we probably don’t need right now, is both admirable and worth investigating as a communications professional.

Happy shopping, fam.