CVS Health on Monday announced its “transparency for beauty imagery” initiative.
In accordance with the initiative, post-production alterations of images will be prohibited by brands in CVS Pharmacy's beauty aisles.
The ban takes effect on April 2019 for CVS Pharmacy's own beauty brands and applies to all marketing materials, print and online.
All brands with products sold by CVS are expected to comply by the end of 2020 -- including brands such as L'Oreal, CoverGirl, and Maybelline.
“For this initiative, materially altered is defined as changing or enhancing a person's shape, size, proportion, skin or eye color, wrinkles or any other individual characteristics,” CVS Health explains in a statement. “CVS Pharmacy will be working together with key brand partners and industry experts to develop specific guidelines in an effort to ensure consistency and transparency.”
Brands that successfully comply with the initiative will be labeled with a “CVS Beauty Mark,” “a watermark that will be used to highlight imagery that has not been materially altered.”
Those that do not face having an alert label placed on their products flagging their images as “digitally modified,” USA Today reports.
President of CVS Pharmacy and Executive Vice President of CVS Health Helena Foulkes says that the initiative aims to “redefine industry standards” given that “the connection between the propagation of unrealistic body images and negative health effects, especially in girls and young women, has been established.”
“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,” said Foulkes in a statement. "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've reached out to many of our beauty brand partners, many of whom are already thinking about this important issue, to work together to ensure that the beauty aisle is a place that represents and celebrates the authenticity and diversity of the communities we serve," she added. "We've been inspired by their willingness to partner with us to redefine industry standards around this important issue for the well-being of all of our customers."
What do you think of the initiative? Let us know in the comments section below!
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