CVS vows to stop altering beauty images in its ads and stores
‘We have a responsibility’
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Marwa Eltagouri.
CVS Pharmacy will stop touching up its beauty images by the end of 2020, the company announced Monday. Until then, it will signal to customers when an image has not been digitally altered by adding a watermark dubbed “CVS Beauty Mark.” The watermark entails that the person featured in the image did not have their shape, size, skin or eye color, wrinkles or other characteristics enhanced or changed.
It will begin appearing this year on images used in marketing campaigns or on social media.
CVS plans to work with key brand partners and industry experts to create specific guidelines that ensure transparency, the company said in a statement.
Helena Foulkes, president of CVS Pharmacy and executive vice president of CVS Health, said she hopes the company’s initiative will help move the conversation about body image in a more positive direction.
“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,” she said in the company’s statement.
“The connection between the propagation of unrealistic body images and negative health effects, especially in girls and young women, has been established,” Foulkes said.
Industry trend
The move by CVS comes as more companies promote body authenticity and embrace the idea that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.
- In the fall, Seattle-based Getty Images announced that it would no longer carry creative content depicting models whose body shapes had been retouched to make them look thinner or larger.
- In 2016, the toy company Mattel introduced a line of Barbie dolls with three new body types — petite, tall and curvy — to change the beauty ideals girls are exposed to from a young age.
- For more than a decade, Dove has encouraged women to love their bodies, though the company stumbled last year. Its release of curvy, slender and pear-shaped bottles designed to represent different body types irked many.
Confusing messages
Some companies’ efforts to promote authentic beauty ideals get lost in a world still saturated with confusing messages. In 2016, American Eagle’s lingerie and loungewear company, Aerie, released photos of its new plus-size spokeswoman in a pink string bikini. The Internet applauded it as an empowering symbol of authentic body image. But when singer Selena Gomez wore a similar bikini the year before, she was shamed online for gaining weight and admitted to needing therapy afterward.
