What We Did
We had Sharen Jester Turney—the president and CEO of Victoria’s Secret Direct, the catalog and online arm of Victoria’s Secret—and Karolina Kurkova, one of our newest supermodels, come in for the promotional event at the Exchange. Karolina had always wanted to walk the floor of the NYSE and learn how business is conducted there, so we took a floor tour. We visited the specialist post where Limited Brands—LTD—is traded, and afterward we gave numerous national and international media interviews.

The interviews were an important part of the event because the media outlets at the Exchange—CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, 1010 WINS, for instance—reach both large and small investors. Our shareholders listen and watch the journalists reporting on the market on a regular basis. Through the media, we were able to tell investors what our predictions were for the holidays and what we expected our top-selling products to be, while also generating excitement for the brand.

How We Planned It
The first thing we did once we decided to use the fashion show to launch the holiday shopping season was call the Exchange. We’ve had numerous successful events at the Exchange over the last eight years, and we’ve always found them to be very good brand-building and shareholder understanding/awareness events.  The thought was that the Exchange was the right venue to kick off the holiday shopping season. We worked hand in hand with representatives at the Exchange to make the event seamless, which included everything from identifying the needs of the Victoria’s Secret brand and coordinating media interviews to executing the behind-the-scenes special components we wanted to deliver to our executives and supermodel Karolina. It was a great opportunity to bring our top executives and Karolina to the Exchange and experience in real time stock transactions, the adrenaline of the financial floor and to see and learn how our stock is traded.

Most Memorable
The most memorable moments centered around the Santa Girl pink hat, which was one of our top-selling holiday items. We brought hundreds of the hats to the Exchange floor, but we wondered, "Is this something that traders on the floor are going to be enthusiastic about?" Boy were they. As we moved throughout the floor, everyone was saying, "Hey, I need a pink hat. I need a pink hat." It was great. It’s the kind of buzz you want around your brand, particularly around the holiday season. 

Results
We achieved exactly what we set out for.  This was an awareness-building event to create excitement around the Victoria's Secret brand among our investors, customers and associates.  We wanted to build awareness of the fact that Victoria's Secret would be hosting a nationally televised fashion show that night and that it was an exciting brand with a great plan in place for doing well during the holidays. We also wanted to make investors see that if they like Victoria’s Secret and think it’s a good business, then they want to invest in LTD—that’s the stock they want.

Victoria’s Secret—the largest subsidiary of Limited Brands Inc. (LTD), an apparel, lingerie, personal care and beauty company—is the nation’s top retailer of women’s intimate apparel.  Victoria’s Secret operates more than 1,000  stores in the United States.  Its products are also available through a catalog and online at www.victoriassecret.com.