Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from John Morris - Wachovia.
John Morris - Wachovia
Neil, remind us a little bit about the opportunity you had for holiday. I know it's way out there on the horizon but obviously it's a very critical period for you and the BBW division. What have you got on tap for holiday? Where's the opportunity this year versus last year?
Sharen, maybe if you can delve a little bit deeper at Vicki's on the bra category, why the launches have lacked differentiation, and how you plan to address that? Also, your initiatives for sleepwear as well. Thanks.
Neil Fiske
As you may recall, we made some adjustments in 2006 responding to our learnings from the prior year in our holiday strategy that were quite effective this year. We moved to a more transitional floor-set to kick off the holiday season called Happy Fallidays. We had a terrific October and a terrific November as we moved into our Aspen theme and picked up a lot of ground this year early in the holiday season relative to the prior year.
Where we believed we had opportunity coming out of holiday was really in the closing ten days or so, where we didn't have sufficient inventory of our best-selling seasonal items because they had sold through, nor did we have specifically targeted programs to go after traffic and conversion in those last ten days. So the biggest adjustment we will be making in holiday 2007 is to go after the final stretch of holiday with a different assortment strategy and a different set of programs to go after the last-minute shopper.
Sharen Turney
When we talk about the bra category, I think that one of the things that we did this year that I think that we weren't differentiated enough is that we built upon the technology that we launched last year and I think we started talking to ourselves a little bit internally. So when you think about Secret Embrace, it is the most fabulous one-piece bra, we actually took that to our different sub brands. Last year we focused on that in one sub brand so this year we took it as a collection. I think that what we ended up doing was confusing the customer about is Secret Embrace a technology, is it a sub brand? We weren't clear within our messaging. That's the number 1.
