These days, it’s crit­i­cal for brands to com­mu­ni­cate a clear vision of what the brand stands for, and to viewed as empa­thet­ic to con­sumers. This builds trust, loy­al­ty, and ulti­mate­ly allows brands to win in their mar­ket. Does CVS’ rebrand sig­nal a bold new direc­tion for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal brands?

U.S. phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal retail chain CVS recent­ly announced they have stopped sell­ing tobac­co prod­ucts from their retail stores. They had announced in Feb­ru­ary that the sale of tobac­co prod­ucts con­flict­ed with their health care mis­sion and planned to remove tobac­co from their stores by Octo­ber, but they reached their tar­get ahead of sched­ule.

The Amer­i­can Phar­ma­cists Asso­ci­a­tion called on drug­stores to stop sell­ing tobac­co in March 2010 and CVS is the first large chain to cease doing so.

The move is indica­tive of the com­pa­ny’s wider pub­lic rela­tions ini­tia­tives and rebrand­ing. The deci­sion to remove tobac­co prod­ucts aligns to the com­pa­ny’s long-term health­care mis­sion, and as report­ed in Forbes reflects their recent rebrand­ing from “CVS Care­mark” to “CVS Health” as they seek to serve a “broad­er health­care com­mit­ment” and change the future health of Amer­i­cans.

#OneGoodReason, One Great Campaign

The announce­ment has made head­lines as an espe­cial­ly bold move by CVS, finan­cial­ly as well as strate­gi­cal­ly, and CEO Lar­ry Mer­lo has pub­licly voiced that the with­draw­al of tobac­co prod­ucts is expect­ed to cost the com­pa­ny approx­i­mate­ly $2 bil­lion in annu­al sales, or 3 per­cent of com­pa­ny rev­enues.

It rep­re­sents a brave com­mit­ment to their new health-cen­tric brand­ing and the mes­sage has been rein­forced by the com­pa­ny’s PR and mar­ket­ing activ­i­ty.

Already CVS have had a huge­ly pos­i­tive response on social media, includ­ing con­grat­u­la­tions from First Lady Michelle Oba­ma. Ask­ing fol­low­ers to share inspi­ra­tional rea­sons for quit­ting smok­ing using the #One­GoodRea­son hash­tag, they’ve real­ly cap­tured peo­ple’s imag­i­na­tions and encour­aged users to engage.

The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try typ­i­cal­ly strug­gles to gen­er­ate mar­ket­ing mes­sages that res­onate with users, and CVS’ anti-tobac­co stance has cer­tain­ly made them stand out, as well as putting pres­sure on their com­peti­tors to join suit.

They have also sup­port­ed their posi­tion with research show­ing how the with­draw­al of tobac­co prod­ucts will ben­e­fit U.S. cus­tomers. In a soon to be pub­lished CVS study in the jour­nal Health Affairs, the com­pa­ny’s data sug­gests that bans at phar­ma­cies in Boston and San Fran­cis­co led to more than 13 per­cent few­er tobac­co pur­chas­es.

Fur­ther­more, as report­ed by USA Today, “Smok­ers did­n’t just switch where they bought cig­a­rettes and oth­er tobac­co prod­ucts, some stopped buy­ing them alto­geth­er. [This can be con­clud­ed because] about 900 house­holds in the two cities record­ed every­thing they bought after the bans went into effect.”

In an inter­view with Troyen Bren­nan, CVS’ chief med­ical offi­cer in the same arti­cle, CVS voiced that “if the results were extrap­o­lat­ed for phar­ma­cies across the USA, it would lead to 65,000 few­er deaths a year.”

A New Direction for Pharmaceutical

The with­draw­al of tobac­co prod­ucts from CVS and the suc­cess of the asso­ci­at­ed social media activ­i­ty is notable for a num­ber of rea­sons.

1. Prioritizing Long-Term Strategy Over Short-Term Revenue Streams

While there will inevitably be a direct hit on estab­lished rev­enues, the with­draw­al of tobac­co prod­ucts aligns to CVS greater com­mit­ment to improv­ing the health of U.S. cit­i­zens. To an extent, CVS is bank­ing on the oppor­tu­ni­ty that a clear, pos­i­tive per­cep­tion of their brand will be more valu­able than any income made from tobac­co sales.

2. Commitment To Wider Branding & Healthcare Messages

As their #One­GoodRea­son cam­paign shows, ceas­ing the sale of tobac­co prod­ucts enables them to tie togeth­er mar­ket­ing cam­paigns under the CVS Health brand. In a sense, it’s the sim­plic­i­ty of the mes­sage that is the most pow­er­ful, align­ing the brand to some­thing that their cus­tomers care about.

3. Multichannel Integration

CVS’ often release reports on the state of U.S. health­care, and this move enables much greater inte­gra­tion of their work across inter-depart­men­tal chan­nels. One of the most pow­er­ful ele­ments of the #One­GoodRea­son cam­paign, is the fact that it can be sup­port­ed by press releas­es, sur­veys, and reports from CVS which show the poten­tial ben­e­fits of ceas­ing the sale of tobac­co prod­ucts in town and com­mu­ni­ties with­in the US.

4. Setting A Precedent For Pharmacies

The move has put con­sid­er­able pres­sure on com­peti­tor phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal retail­ers to com­mit to health issues and also with­draw tobac­co prod­ucts from their stores. Health issues are a con­cern to us all, and CVS has shown they share that empa­thy with their con­sumers as a brand. It’s a very pow­er­ful mes­sage with which to asso­ciate one’s brand.

Conclusion

Over­all, there are many rea­sons why CVS’ anti-tobac­co, and com­mit­ment to con­sumer health can serve as a great exam­ple in inte­grat­ed and empa­thet­ic mod­ern mar­ket­ing. The fact that the #One­GoodRea­son cam­paign has achieved such wide­spread cov­er­age in both the news and media, as well as on social media is a tes­ta­ment to what can be achieved when a brand’s oper­a­tions are unit­ed under a sin­gle vision, which cham­pi­ons shared, empa­thet­ic val­ues that can win over cus­tomers and encour­age them to engage.

CVS’ work stands out as an exam­ple of bold and inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing. Could this be a new prece­dence for health-cen­tric phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal brands with retail stores?