CVS is giving its healthcare products a glow-up to lure you away from brand names
The look of the health and wellness products at CVS is about to get a little less prescriptive. The pharmacy chain, which reported $94.59 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, landing ahead of expectations, announced it is overhauling its packaging for 68 pain reliever products this month, with updated packaging to come for nearly 3,000 other health and wellness items by the end of 2026.
The outgoing packaging for the pharmacy's private-label health and wellness products looks overtly clinical, in some cases packing product information into small areas with tiny text. Consumers are already overwhelmed with so many options in the health and wellness category, according to Musab Balbale, CVS Health's chief merchandising officer.
'While we continuously strive to innovate our brands, we had not conducted a complete update of the CVS Health brand identity in almost 10 years,' Balbale tells Fast Company. 'Now, we are putting our CVS brand front and center to truly stand out on the shelf.'
The new look is streamlined, with a simpler 'CVS' logo instead of 'CVS Health,' flat colors instead of gradients, and bigger product labels. The packages are easier to read, and a simplified visual hierarchy emphasizes product benefits and features. It's made for store shelves and for easy comprehension at a glance. Products for kids and babies will be labeled with a ladybug. The redesign was done over the course of a year by teams from across CVS Health working with outside partners including the brand design agency Pearlfisher.
Why CVS is rebranding
The new packaging is the latest example of a private-label rebrand as CVS and other retailers have invested more in their own product lines. As consumers traded down from national brands to store brands due to inflation since the pandemic, stores like Target and Walmart redesigned their house brands to grow their owned shelf space and revenue. With friendly, brightly colored packaging that's more design-forward and high-end than many of the generic brands of years past, this new generation of private-label products is meant to reach high-income shoppers with big-box-store prices.
For CVS, the new packaging was made with three goals in mind: modernizing the brand, bringing the brand front and center, and emphasizing product form and benefits to make the shopping experience easier. The larger goal is associating CVS with health and wellness at large.
'With this evolution of the CVS brand, we're not only simplifying shopping for customers, but we're also aiming to become the health and wellness brand they think of first when seeking trusted solutions that deliver value and convenience,' Mike Wier, VP of store brands at CVS Health, said in a statement.
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