Associated Press
It turned out to be a brilliant marketing idea.
The combination of sports, sex, fashion, TV, and the Internet proved irresistible and it has set advertising executives abuzz over future possibilities.
Says Ed Razek, chief creative officer at Victoria's Secret: "What other commercial has triggered a million people to immediately get up and do something? ... During an event that big, we were able to change their behavior and switch their programming. It's never been done before."
Sunday's response was completely unexpected, Razek says, and it caused the Web site's main computer system to temporarily crash.
Will the much-hyped event generate more sales? No one can say for sure. Some women, like Jill Carey, fashion historian at Lasell College in Newton, were put off by the ad and the concept of men ogling women in bras.
"It was all about breasts. They showed the models moving toward you on the runway and the camera focused on the breasts. I thought it was very sexist. It wasn't quite pornographic. But certainly it was extremely suggestive."
But even if women don't take the bait, men might. After all, Valentine's Day is coming up.
The company also broadcast its annual Spring Fashion Show over the Internet Wednesday, but it wasn't prepared for the number of people who tuned in to watch. The computers failed as millions of Web surfers tried to log on to http://www.VictoriasSecret.com.
The computers were configured to handle between 250,000 and 500,000 simultaneous viewers. Figures for the total number of people viewing the Web site during the show are not yet available.
