The annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has come and gone once again, but the brand brought a few new twists to the experience that enriched it for mobile users.

This year, for the first time ever, Victoria’s Secret fans will be able to purchase looks from the show in real-time as they are shown through the brand’s mobile application. In addition, customers can live stream the event and engage with the brand on social media, all through mobile.

Victoria’s Secret
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has grown over the years from a fun event featuring the latest in the brand’s elegant looks to a national event, attended by celebrities and with big-name guests and performances.

Alongside the spectacle, the brand’s technological and commercial aspects have grown as well. Over the years, Victoria’s Secret has begun to capitalize more and more on the event in an attempt to use its spectacle to drive sales and social media engagement.

Victoria’s Secret began this process of mobilization by integrating its mobile app into the proceedings. Users can live stream the event through the mobile app so that they can watch it wherever they are and regardless of whether or not they have a cable service.

This embraces the popular trend of cordcutting, and enables the brand to reach the largest amount of people through the dominant digital channel – mobile.

But Victoria’s Secret is also taking another big mobile step this year, and it has to do with mobile shopping.

This year, the brand is taking its commercial ambitions even further with the ability for consumers to shop the looks they see on stage in real time, as they are shown, through the brand’s mobile app.

This will provide a direct, immediate link between the marketing of the Fashion Show with the concrete commercial aspect of its app, removing the downtime consumers have between seeing the looks they want and being able to purchase them.

Shoppable show
Victoria’s Secret is banking on the high-profile visibility of the annual fashion show to help drive customers to its mobile shopping channel.

The brand is making the most of the spectacle involved by encouraging downloads of the app and sharing on social media to get the most mobile engagement possible. Once the app has been installed on a customer’s phone, Victoria’s Secret can hook them in with the fashion show campaign – letting them buy the looks as they see them – to drive sales and hopefully retain a loyal customer.

The customers who download the app for this campaign will be eligible to remain as loyalty members, using the app to earn points for purchases they make at Victoria’s Secret.

Victoria’s Secret has previously shown its commitment to mobile over traditional retail channels by forsaking its long-running print catalogue in favor of a mobile alternative (see story).

The brand has also signaled its interest in social media as a powerful tool for mobile marketing and commerce with a coupon campaign for Snapchat (see story).

As the annual fashion show has continued to grow in scale and spectacle, Victoria’s Secret has continually turned to mobile as its preferred tool – both for capturing customers’ attention and for facilitating transactions.