Analysis On Marketing Of Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show From Symbolic Consumption Theory

Today, human society has entered an era with extremely abundant material richness. Materials are no longer scarce but saturated and even exceed the necessary amount. The use value only can no longer attracts consumers’ demand for commodities. More and more consumers no longer focus on the use value of commodities only; instead, the symbol value endowed by the brand is valued. In the intense commercial competition in future, the building of brand symbol value will be an increasingly important step.American women’s underwear brand "Victoria’s Secret" is an outstanding performer which achieves its marketing purpose by building brand symbol value. It is not only the leading brand in American women’s underwear field but also essentially highlights symbolic nature. What consumers consume is actually the brand image of "Victoria’s Secret" beyond the underwear. It’s self-definition of fashion and sexiness. With the annual launch event,"Victoria’s Secret" Fashion Show successfully builds its brand image of symbolic significance that represents "charm, romance and sexiness" with its dramatic and fantastic stage charms.As a result, this study regards Baudrillard’s consumption culture concept as its theoretical basis and Hoshino Katsumi’s "advertising semiotic analysis" as the analytic framework with a view to exploring the ways of symbol value injection and the development course of brand image building in "Victoria’s Secret" Fashion Show as well as the growth and influences of "Victoria’s Secret" Fashion Show in Chinese market.