What it had to solve
CVS's private-label health and wellness packaging looked overtly clinical, packing information into small areas with tiny text, just as inflation-driven trade-down made own brands a growth engine and rivals like Target and Walmart redesigned their house brands.
The idea
Make own-label packaging readable at a glance: simpler 'CVS' logo, flat colours, bigger labels and a hierarchy led by product benefits.
How it works
A year-long redesign by CVS Health teams with Pearlfisher replaced gradients with flat colours, simplified the visual hierarchy around product benefits and features, and fronted packs with the 'CVS' wordmark. Products for kids and babies get a ladybug label. The overhaul began with 68 pain reliever products in May 2025 and extends to nearly 3,000 other health and wellness items by the end of 2026, rolling out across shelves and online.
What it did
The redesign puts the CVS brand front and centre across thousands of own-label products, part of a bet on becoming 'the health and wellness brand they think of first'; CVS reported $94.59 billion in Q1 2025 revenue as the rollout began. Sales impact of the new packs has not been reported.
Background
CVS's own-label health products looked like what they were: utilitarian packs with tiny text, unchanged in almost a decade. In May 2025 the pharmacy chain — $94.59 billion in Q1 2025 revenue — began overhauling the packaging for 68 pain reliever products, with nearly 3,000 other health and wellness items to follow by the end of 2026.
The redesign, run over a year by CVS Health teams with brand design agency Pearlfisher, trades gradients for flat colours, swaps 'CVS Health' for a simpler 'CVS' wordmark, and blows the labels up so benefits and features lead the hierarchy — built for comprehension at a glance on shelf. Kids' and babies' products carry a ladybug so parents can spot them instantly.
Chief merchandising officer Musab Balbale framed the overhaul as putting the CVS brand 'front and center to truly stand out on the shelf' amid overwhelming category choice. The context is the private-label land grab of the inflation years: as consumers traded down from national brands, Target and Walmart redesigned their house brands to be design-forward enough for high-income shoppers at big-box prices. CVS's stated goals: modernise the brand, foreground it, and make shopping easier — aiming to become the health and wellness brand customers think of first.
Why it lands
Own brands were CVS's growth engine post-inflation, but clinical, dated packaging undersold them to the design-literate shoppers now trading down.
At-a-glance readability is a real purchase driver in overwhelmed categories like pain relievers, where choice paralysis is highest.
Consolidating on 'CVS' turns nearly 3,000 packs into a single brand-blocking statement against national brands.
The ladybug gives the range an emotional shortcut for the highest-stakes purchases — what you give your child.
What you can take
Private label wins shelf wars on design, not just price: the moment own brands look designed-for-humans rather than generic, they can chase premium shoppers at big-box prices.
Since then
The rollout began with pain relievers in May 2025 and continues across health and wellness categories through the end of 2026, spanning shelves and online. The source article reports no sales lift for the new packs; CVS's earlier beauty-packaging redesign in 2023 lifted sales 20% in six months.
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