CVS to End Alterations in Beauty Ads

Source: U.S. News

The nation's largest drugstore chain has pledged to put an end to featuring beauty ads in which the appearance of models has been digitally altered, introducing new guidelines that strive for what company officials called "transparency for beauty imagery." Introducing its new "CVS Beauty Mark" campaign, CVS, which has more than 9,700 locations, will begin placing a watermark on ad material that has not been "materially altered," which the company defined as "changing or enhancing a person's shape, size, proportion, skin or eye color, wrinkles or any other individual characteristics," according to a press release from the company on Monday. "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 Helena Foulkes, president of CVS Pharmacy and executive vice president of CVS Health.