It’s difficult to figure out who the target audience for this app is. Is Victoria Secret after the cavalcade of men who anxiously pretend not to care that their wife/girlfriend/neighbor just got a new Victoria Secret nighttime collection catalogue in the mail?
Or is there an assumption that the search for the next Victoria’s Secret model is going to titillate reality TV show viewers who need to find out even more about the prospective models?
Whichever it is, this app doesn’t seem to suit either crowd very well. In the riled-up man department, The 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (free) does two things wrong. First, the videos included here are some of the worst I’ve seen on the iPhone. It reminds me of watching RealPlayer clips in the early 2000s in terms of video quality.
Second, I’m not sure how many guys are going to willingly let a Victoria’s Secret app icon sit on their phone. Even in reviewing this app, I’ve had to answer to a few raised eyebrows from my girlfriend and a friend.
For people interested in the contest and the upcoming fashion show, there’s nothing to compellingly tie the contest together. There are the previously mentioned video clips, and then there are still shots of the models being photographed, or lounging at the spa. But there’s nothing to invest anyone in the show.
There are no profiles of the models. No look at what they do when they’re not on the show. If this app is supposed to get me to watch a fashion show, it is doing a very poor job on a number of fronts.
You can supposedly vote on who performed the latest challenge the best, but other than a wheel that scrolls through the models’ names, it doesn’t appear to actually register a vote.
There is a lot of content here in the form of those photos and the few grainy videos, but I’m just not sure any of it is actually worth taking the time to look at. Victoria’s Secret might want to think about what people like about their catalogues when they make their next foray into the app world.
