CVS Health Corp.

Photo: Neal Davies, president and CEO, Effie Worldwide, (left) and Amy Hahn, senior VP of marketing, Ahold, (right) present an Effie Award to Matthew Parry, senior director of marketing at Walmart and Haley Prowell, associate marketing manager at Walmart.

Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Walmart and CVS Health were among this year winners of Effie awards, which recognize excellence in shopper marketing.

The CVS Health Foundation on Wednesday announced the second round of grants awarded in partnership with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids through the "Making the Next Generation Tobacco-Free" grant program. The new grants are part of #BeTheFirst, CVS Health's $50 million, five-year initiative to help deliver the nation's first tobacco-free generation, and extend the company's commitment to help people lead tobacco-free lives.

The first MinuteClinic walk-in medical clinics inside Target stores in the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham areas are now open, CVS Health announced Tuesday. The Target-based clinics – located in three Charlotte-area stores in Charlotte and Concord and eight stores in The Triangle in Apex, Carey, Durham, Raleigh and Wake Forest – have been rebranded and converted to MinuteClinic.

The first MinuteClinic walk-in medical clinics inside Target stores in the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham areas are now open, CVS Health announced Tuesday.

CVS Health on Thursday announced the launch of "Be The First," a five-year $50 million initiative to help deliver the nation's first tobacco-free generation.

CVS Health's decision to stop selling cigarettes is having its intended impact - 52% of those consumers who used to buy their cigarettes from CVS say it is now harder to buy cigarettes altogether, according to a survey commissioned by V2, a manufacturer of electronic cigarette and vaporizer products. Out of that group, 73% called the impact manageable, stating that “buying cigarettes is now harder but I have other options” and 27% said it made buying them “much harder.”