One topic that always seems to arise when we are having discussions in class know matter the subject is ethics. Whether we are discussing quarterly reports from an accountants perspective, or from that of a VP of Operations and are trying keep a competitive advantage. One area that you don’t often see ethics being involved with is the female underwear industry, Aerie changed this with #aeriereal promoting non photoshopped non air brushed no altered models. Mia and Sukhleen bring up a good point that Aerie modeled their business canvas to ‘one of the most “emerging brands in retail today.’” Aerie took a similar approach to that of Doves “real beauty” campaign, where they focus on natural beauty apposed to fake or photoshopped beauty. This really resonates with people because it’s a lot easier for an everyday person to relate to a someone that is presented as an everyday person.
I then wanted to see if people in a different age group felt similarly or if it was just a college trend. I found a blog post by GypsyBagelhands on reddit to be extremely useful for this (age 30).One thing that she brought up was the selling price, 7 pairs of underwear for $25 which is usually the cost of one pair form a leading brand like Victoria Secret. Another great point that was brought up is that she can order online, which is something that older women seem to be fan of. The reason that this is good is because older women who are busy don’t want to go to the store and try on a bra every time they need to underwear no longer have to do this.
Whats even more interesting but not very surprising is the fact that “Sales went up an astounding 18% year-on-year” and Aerie actually started doing better Victoria Secret in terms of sales. The reason for this is because “Victoria’s Secret needs to stop hiding behind dazzle and dated ’70s concepts such as ‘Angels” and the ‘Fantasy Bra,’ and start having a real conversation with women,” says branding expert and marketing professor at University of Southern California Jeetendr Sehdev. Basically todays generation is moving towards thinking about inner beauty and doesn’t really care about Victoria Secret models and their “Fantasy Bras” as much anymore. What i’m interested in seeing is how companies like Victoria Secret are going to reshape there business model and marketing technique to try and re gain customers that they lost from staying so biased in there marketing techniques.

sources:

Let’s talk about aerie underpants
byu/GypsyBagelhands infemalefashionadvice

COMM101: UNTAMPERED BEAUTY

ww.fastcocreate.com/3025443/this-is-who-we-are-now-why-aerie-stopped-retouching-the-models-in-its-ads
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aerie-photoshop-sales-growth-2016_us_573d35d6e4b0646cbeec260c
http://www.businessinsider.com/aerie-is-the-hottest-lingerie-company-2015-7

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