The real Victoria’s Secret? Retro marketing. While competitors envy the brand's social media savvy, the intimate-apparel chain is more focused on generating buzz the good old-fashioned way: TV. It's continuing its annual blow-out network television holiday fashion show with its signature “Angels” appearing bejeweled in Swarovski crystal-decorated lingerie strutting the catwalk in stiletto heels:
Last year, the special received its highest rating in a decade, 11.5 million viewers, and most of them women. VS “Angels,” a cornerstone of the brand’s image, are also featured in catalogs, in-store and in advertisements, while its website features a “VS All Access” section about them, a list that includes supermodels Adriana Lima, Miranda Kerr and alumni Tyra Banks, Gisele Bundchen and Heidi Klum.
As Bloomberg puts it, “Unlike brands that hire celebrities to market their apparel or design new lines, modeling for Victoria’s Secret launches careers.” 
The TV show is “essentially an hour-long commercial, and really, that is unheard of,” said Erika Maschmeyer, analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. to Bloomberg. “There are a lot of places to buy intimate apparel, but there’s no other place that has such a strong brand connotation to it and I think the fashion show is definitely a part of that.”
Viewers can’t buy the elaborate costumes designed around themes like “Circus,” “Calendar Girls” and “Silver Screen Angels,” but the allure works as their online and catalog sales rose 4% to $1.56 billion last year, and overall revenue at Victoria’s Secret’s 1,000-plus stores rose 14% to $4.56 billion.
“One model wears a multi-million dollar bra gift set in the show each year, an illustration of the event’s opulence and the brand’s aspirational nature. This year’s set, valued at $2.5 million, was made with more than 5,200 precious gems, including sapphires, rubies and diamonds, in 18-karat rose and yellow gold,” reports Bloomberg.
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2012 airs on CBS, Tuesday, Dec. 4th, 10/9c. Too bad there’s only one bra available for $2.5 million.
VS is parent company Limited’s largest brand (followed by Bath & Body Works) and its chief executive officer, Les Wexner, is the longest-tenured CEO in the S&P 500, with successful spin-offs including the Limited stores, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Express Inc.
“The models chosen are very specifically ones that women can relate to or feel comfortable around and have personalities,” said, Marcie Merriman, director of brand strategy and planning for Victoria’s Secret from 2001 to 2003. Both Klum and Banks have hosted television shows.
The fashion show costs about $12 million to produce but “pays for itself” in marketing reverb, as Jennifer Davis, analyst with Lazard Capital Markets told Bloomberg.
The VS brand is still reeling from last year’s scandal, “Victoria’s Secret Revealed in Child Picking Organic Cotton,” also reported by Bloomberg last year.
“By the time Clarisse picked her first harvest in 2010, Victoria's Secret was becoming the fair trade program's only buyer instead of the most prominent, according to Georges Guebre, the program's leader. An executive for Victoria's Secret’s parent company says the amount of cotton it buys from Burkina Faso is minimal, but it takes the child-labor allegations seriously.”
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