For a long time, the beauty industry has utilized photo editing techniques and processes that often promote unattainable and unrelatable standards for women. Such campaign imagery is misleading, since it suggests further product efficacy and additional qualities that may not exist. However, CVS Pharmacy's Beauty in Real Life campaign is here and it's thoroughly committed to creating new and realistic standards when it comes to beauty imagery!
According to press materials received by Bustle, Beauty in Real Life is the retailer's first campaign to include the "CVS Beauty Mark." What's that? We're so glad you asked.
It's a white stamp watermark that reads "Beauty Unaltered" and thereby announces that images have not been "materially altered." That means the brand did not "not digitally alter or change a person's shape, size, proportion, skin or eye color or enhance or alter lines, wrinkles or other individual characteristics."
Basically, CVS is rewriting the script when it comes to post-production altering of images. CVS worked with beauty brands to define and craft guidelines so images are not substantially changed and ultimately falsified.
The campaign is all about authenticity and transparency. It encourages you to be proud of yourself, your looks, and your creativity when it comes to enhancing and highlighting them with products. It wants you to feel good about yourself when you shop at CVS.
CVS is passionate about wanting its beauty aisles to be a place where customers feel comfortable and as though their communities are served and supported.
No longer will you cruise into your local CVS and feel crestfallen upon seeing images of "flawless" models that don't represent your style, skin tone, culture, background, or life as you know and live it.
The Beauty in Real Life campaign depicts real women, celebrates diversity, and allows the subjects to demonstrate their own definitions of beauty. The entire campaign was created by women and for women, giving it an informed perspective. The campaign is all about living your best life.
Don't you love how the women in these images are battling windswept hair in their faces? That's a very real hassle that those of us with long locks deal with! That element injects a a dose of levity into an otherwise serious and important message that powers the entire campaign. It reminds us that beauty products should be fun to use, too.
The other goal of the campaign is to highlight the ways in which women incorporate beauty and products into their lives.
The reason CVS has gone down this road, other than it's reflective of real life? It's what shoppers have been seeking and demanding. They have been vocal about their fatigue over homogenous and impractical imaging.
"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, former President of CVS Pharmacy and Executive Vice President, CVS Health, has said. "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."
Translation: CVS is all in IRL.
"There's been a shift in what consumers want to see when it comes to beauty. They are asking for more transparency and authenticity, and that's what Beauty in Real Life is all about," said Norman de Greve, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, CVS Health, in a press release. "We wanted to introduce a campaign that uses beauty to make women feel good about themselves by empowering them to feel comfortable and confident in their own skin."
In addition to the Beauty in Real Life campaign, CVS has truly established itself as a go-to beauty destination. Last year, the retailer introduced a curated, K-Beauty section in select stores and on its site. It was another move that demonstrated CVS' keen understanding of the consistently evolving trends in the self-care realm.
These IRL campaign images are just the first of many for CVS, as transparency for any beauty imagery that has been materially altered will be required by the end of 2020. Amen to that.
