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These photos reveal why women are abandoning Victoria's Secret for American Eagle's Aerie underwear brand

Victoria's Secret goes for racy images in its ads, while its rival, Aerie, focuses on female empowerment. We visited both and saw the differences firsthand.

  • Competitor
  • Aerie has doubled down on its efforts to promote female empowerment, and this is resonating well with customers.
  • Meanwhile, Victoria's Secret's customers are
  • We visited the two stores to see how their ad campaigns differ.

Aerie is booming.

The lifestyle brand owned by American Eagle reported record same-store sales growth for the fourth quarter of 2017 on Thursday, marking its 15th consecutive quarter of positive growth.

"Aerie is resonating with young women and evolving into a true lifestyle brand," Jennifer Foyle, global brand president of Aerie, said in a call with investors on Thursday morning. The company confirmed it would be opening 35 to 40 new Aerie stores during 2018.

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Aerie has doubled down on its efforts to appeal to female shoppers, ditching photoshopped images and partnering with women activists to promote female empowerment.

Meanwhile, rival brand Victoria's Secret has been accused of failing to appeal to customers with its racy ad campaigns, which also threaten to negatively impact its teen brand PINK. It reported negative same-store sales growth for the fourth quarter of 2017.

In January, Business Insider reported that mothers of teenage children who shopped at its teen-centric brand, PINK, were revolting online because of the oversexualized ads in Victoria's Secret's stores.

"It is basically pornography that everyone (children and teens) are subjected to viewing because there is only one area to check out between PINK and Victoria's Secret, which happens to have the most obscene photos behind the registers," shopper Jessie Shealy wrote on Victoria's Secret's Facebook page.

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But it's not only PINK customers who are being put off by these racy photos. Some Victoria's Secret customers are also complaining that its ads are targeted more at men than women.

We visited Aerie and Victoria's Secret to see just how extreme the differences are:

We visited two stores in Manhattan's Soho area. The stores were on the same block and therefore in direction competition with each other.

American Eagle's Aerie lingerie brand is known for its body-positive ad campaigns using "real" women.

The brand famously doesn't Photoshop any of the images in its ads. In 2014, it swapped its airbrushed ads for unretouched photos and launched a body-positive campaign known as #AerieReal.

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These campaigns are immediately visible in the store.

Images are stamped with captions that say: "No retouching on these girls."

Female empowerment has become Aerie's biggest weapon against brands like Victoria's Secret.

This is hammered home in its apparel offerings, which bear inspirational messages.

The strategy appears to be working: Aerie has seen 15 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth while Victoria's Secret, whose bread and butter has long been padded bras and sexy ad campaigns, saw negative sales growth for the past year.

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In January, Aerie announced it would be partnering with actress-activist Yara Shahidi, gold medal gymnast Aly Raisman, and singer-songwriter Rachel Platten to launch its new "role models" campaign.

It's a very different scene at Victoria's Secret.

The lingerie is definitely more daring.

Around the store, there are several black-and-white photos of Victoria's Secret models posing.

In some, women are posing provocatively ...

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... and it doesn't seem like they are necessarily targeted at female shoppers.

There is certainly a different tone in this store when compared to Aerie.

One customer commented on this photo on Facebook: "Ok, do they want us to buy because this is not how... Is this even FOR women."

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