The Cloud Campaign: A Case of Naïve Integrations
Anna Kim
The Victoria’s Secret Cloud campaign features a diverse range of models including plus size women, women of color, visibly older models, a pregnant model, a model in a wheelchair and a model with down syndrome all flaunting a new line of bras (Victoria’s Secret, Introducing the Love Cloud Collection; Acevedo para 1). The video introducing the campaign overlays images of models laughing with voiceovers of women calling the bra “feminist” and praising its comfort (Victoria’s Secret). Are such depictions normalizing and destigmatizing of diverse bodies, or are they stigmatizing and dehumanizing (Low 348)? Victoria’s Secret’s new shift for inclusive, even “feminist,” lingerie promises more representation in clothing advertisements to cover up a problematic past, but is this campaign as empowering as it suggests or is it a case of naïve integrations which relies on tenants of freakery (Victoria’s Secret; McCoy)?
Disability scholar Sarah Heiss defines naïve integrations as a marketing strategy that purports respect for diversity while making no internal systemic change (para 13). This marketing is problematic because it gives people from underrepresented communities the false pretense of inclusion (Heiss, para 13). I buttress this theory by integrating the concept of freakery which is apparent in the naïve integration theory (McCoy). Both naïve integration and freakery use exhibition of extraordinary body-minds for profit under the guise of education and entertainment (Burch). A brief history of Victoria’s Secret provides the context in which the cloud campaign exists and begins to explain the draw behind the Cloud Campaign.
Victoria’s Secret caters to a male fantasy: its name itself sexualizing white, upper class, able-bodied, Victorian women from the 1800s (Maheshwari & Friedman para 9). Wexner owned Victoria’s Secret until facing backlash because of close ties with Epstein and a lawsuit alleging him of sexual harassment and discrimination (Maheshwari & Friedman para 13; Williams para 7). Wexner stepped down as owner in 2020 and hired a female board in response to the sexual harassment and discrimination case (Voytko para 2 and 6).
Is it possible that the leadership of Victoria’s Secret promotes diversity as much as its new Cloud Campaign models appear to promote? Real accessibility takes years to integrate, and is Wexner’s swift removal and promotion of women to board members enough?
The Cloud Campaign offers no subtle integration of diverse body-minds, it is composed almost entirely of diverse models for consumers’ viewing pleasure (Low 353). Upon browsing other sections of the Victoria’s Secret website, I found significantly less diversity than the Cloud Campaign models (Victoria’s Secret). If Victoria’s Secret truly wanted to incorporate diverse models into their branding and celebrate diversity in a non-stigmatizing light, they would incorporate diverse models throughout their marketing without such virtue signaling (Victoria’s Secret; Low 378). The lack of dedication to diversity throughout their initiatives and apparent reactivity of diverse campaigns suggests naïve integrations. Further, the Cloud Campaign implies empowerment and diversity awareness or “education” while also ultimately promoting profit (Burch). This is the same messaging used to promote and capitalize upon freak shows in the 1800s and 1900s (Samuels 3; Burch). The Victoria’s Secret cloud campaign supports problematic naïve integrations and falls in line with tenants used in freakery.
Sources
Heiss, Sarah N. "Locating the Bodies of Women and Disability in Definitions of Beauty: An Analysis of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty." Disability Studies Quarterly 31.1 (2011).
Low, Jacqueline. "Stigma management as celebration: disability, difference, and the marketing of diversity." Visual Studies 35.4 (2020): 347-358.
Samuels, McCoy. “Examining Millie and Christine McKoy: Where Enslavement and Enfreakment Meet.” Signs (Autumn 2011).