The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2014
Victoria's Secret's 'Perfect Body' campaign — petition backlash forced a new tagline
The 'Perfect Body' campaign showed one body type, ten times. A petition hit 29,000 signatures, and the tagline became 'A Body for Every Body.'
Victoria's Secret · L Brands · 2014-11-06
What happened
In late 2014, Victoria's Secret launched a campaign for its Body bra: a line-up of ten models — the same thin, airbrushed body type repeated — under the banner 'The Perfect Body.' The campaign ran on the web and in stores.
Three Leeds students — Frances Black, Gabriella Kountourides and Laura Ferris — started a Change.org petition arguing the campaign perpetuated low self-esteem among women who do not fit the narrow standard. It passed 27,000 signatures within days; by November 7 the BBC put it at more than 29,000.
Victoria's Secret changed the online ad's tagline to 'A Body for Every Body.' In-store ads were left unaltered, and the company did not respond to the BBC's request for comment. The students called the change 'a more inclusive and healthy message' — while noting the underlying line-up of identical models had not changed.
Why it happened
- The campaign sold a bra by telling every other body it was not 'perfect'; the ten-model line-up made the exclusion visual.
- The tagline and the imagery contradicted each other — changing the words without changing the models kept the insult in the stores.
- Three students with a petition outmuscled a global brand's launch, showing how fast a body-image message travels.
- 'A Body for Every Body' read as an admission that the first tagline had been a claim about customers, not about bras.
The lesson
A body-image claim is a promise about your customers, not your product. 'Perfect' is a verdict on the people who don't match the picture; ask who the campaign excludes before it launches.
Aftermath
The petition's victory became the reference case for body-image backlash in advertising, cited in every later campaign that lined up one body type and called it ideal. Victoria's Secret kept running its signature shows, but the episode opened the brand's long public argument about its image.
Sources
- USA Today, 6 November 2014 — Victoria's Secret changes 'Perfect Body' slogan after petition
- BBC News, 7 November 2014 — Victoria's Secret changes 'Perfect Body' campaign after petition
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
More like this
Nike called walkers 'tolerated' on a Spanish billboard — and pulled it before race day
Revolve paid influencers to look organic — a $50M lawsuit says that was the ad
Guess put AI-generated models in Vogue — and called them 'Vivienne' and 'Anastasia'
Somewhere, someone solved the problem this company failed at. 2nd Opinion →
Comments · 0
Sign in to join the comments.