V.S. could have Rattlers wearing PINK

Pink could be the new "black" for thousands of Rattler coeds, or at least that's what FAMU Alumnus and BOT member Richard A. Dent III, chief operating officer for Victoria's Secret Pink hopes.

According to Dent, FAMU along with Howard, Hampton, North Carolina A&T, and Southern will be among the next wave of colleges to join V.S. Pink's Collegiate Collection.

“We have agreements with the licensees who handle collegiate apparel for those schools, and this has been in the works for some time,” he said. Dent adds that the company plans to include students from the schools in internships at Victoria’s Secret, and feature promotions at their homecoming events.

Pink, a collection of loungewear geared toward young, college-aged women, has been sold in Victoria’s Secret stores since 2004. "Victoria’s Secret and Pink’s mission is to have relationships with our customers.”

Pink used the size of the university’s undergraduate and alumni population, geographical reach, and revenue from royalty sales to determine which schools would be included in the initial roll out, but Dent says that it was always his intention to eventually include HBCUs.

Using school size as criteria for the first round automatically excludes minority populations without considering their spending potential, says Bob Dale, CEO of Chicago-based R.J. Dale Advertising & Public Relations Inc. “They might have been a little short-sighted.”

“In terms of distribution through Victoria’s Secret’s website and catalog in millions upon millions of homes it will be a wider distribution than [HBCUs] have ever enjoyed in any other licensed program,” says Scott Bouyack, vice president of apparel marketing at the Collegiate Licensing Co.

“Black consumers are loyal to those companies and brands that are loyal to them,” says McGhee Williams Osse, co-CEO of Burrell Communications. “African American consumers want to be recognized and respected by corporations where we spend money, and those corporations [must remember] that they are competing for our dollars.”