“I realize we have a responsibility to think about the messages we send…”
In a digital age, the desire for what’s real has never been stronger.
In an effort to give its customers a more realistic expectation when it comes to beauty, CVS has announced that it will no longer be allowing photos that have been retouched or manipulated in order to sell beauty products in its stores.
The new rule will require all vendors to update their marketing by 2020. Otherwise, the packaging will be required to show a disclaimer.
CVS Pharmacy President Helena Foulkes said that the goal behind the company-wide policy is to help fight body image issues. Female shoppers make up a large percentage of the company’s customer base. The company is calling this new labeling the “CVS Beauty Mark.”
Foulkes goes on to say in the statement:
“As a woman, mother and president of a retail business whose customers predominantly are women, I realize we have a responsibility to think about the messages we send to the customers we reach each day.
The connection between the propagation of unrealistic body images and negative health effects, especially in girls and young women, has been established. As a purpose-led company, we strive to do our best to assure all of the messages we are sending to our customers reflect our purpose of helping people on their path to better health.”
“We’re all consuming massive amounts of media every day and we’re not necessarily looking at imagery that is real and true,” Folks said in an interview with USA Today. “To try to hold ourselves up to be like those women is impossible because even those women don’t look like how they appear in those photographs.”
CVS has over 9,700 locations, and these changes will be taking place in all of them by the end of 2019. CVS was the first pharmacy to end the sale of tobacco products, and it hopes this change has a positive effect on how women perceive themselves and what beauty really means.
