Limited Brands, Inc. F2Q09 (Qtr End 08/01/09) Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-08-20 11:16:28.0

Tags: Capital Market, Victoria Plc., Call Transcript, Morris Corp., Earnings, Limited Brands Inc., Sharen J. Turney TV, Marketing Research, Marketing, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from John Morris - BMO Capital Markets.

John Morris - BMO Capital Markets

I wanted to dive a little bit deeper on the marketing plans, looking ahead for the back half. Stuart, you talked about marketing, it sounds like being planned down. Can you quantify how much it would be down and give us a little bit of color by division? In particular, I'm wondering for Victoria's Secret, if it's down as well, where is it coming from? Is it print? Is it TV? And just thoughts about the fashion show this year.

Stuart B. Burgdoerfer

In terms of the marketing dollars in the balance of the year, I wouldn't describe it as a key driver of declines for the balance of the year. There is some reduction in the third quarter and some in the fourth quarter as well, so we are working hard, as we've talked about before, to ensure that we're getting the maximum return on those investment dollars and there is some decline in the back half of the year, but I wouldn't describe it as a major change, particularly on a rate basis.

And as it relates to the specific plans and shedding some color on that, Sharen and Diane are in the best place to provide on that.

Sharen J. Turney

From a Victoria's Secret perspective, we have marketing plans slightly down in the fall season primarily having unprofitable CRM and actually optimizing the mailings. The other opportunity that we have is shifting some of the marketing into online, which has been very beneficial for us and we are very excited about that.

Another question that you had was in terms of the fashion show. We are having the fashion show—we just announced our partnership with CBS—which will be held in New York this year.

John Morris - BMO Capital Markets

Does that come out of TV? Is TV down as well in the back half?

Sharen J. Turney

TV is slightly down in the back half, in one month particularly.

Diane L. Neil

Marketing expense in BBW is minimal. Most of our marketing expense in the back half of the year is in CRM and that's basically flat year-over-year.

Operator

Your next question comes from Kimberly Greenberger – Citigroup.

Kimberly Greenberger – Citigroup

Sharen, does it feel like the bra business at Victoria's Secret might be turning, and do you think that the issues of the first half of the year in the intimate business were just the economy and the color palette or did you really need to re-brighten the assortment or, let's say, adjust the mix across the pricing spectrum?

 

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