Practical thinking on collateral strategy, the review process, and what makes pharmaceutical promotional materials work in the field.
When a pharma visual aid goes through three or four revision rounds between the brand team and the designer, the easy assumption is that the designer is not getting the creative right. Rarely the real story.
Most brand teams focus on getting a visual aid designed, approved, and into the field as fast as possible. But speed without scrutiny creates a different kind of problem. Collaterals go through multiple revision rounds.
When we started exploring what it would look like for brand teams to review their own collaterals before submitting for medical and regulatory approval, we had a clear assumption about where the value would come from.
When a pharma collateral gets stuck in the review cycle, most people assume the issue is medical accuracy. A claim the data cannot support. An MOA description that oversimplifies the mechanism.
Every pharma collateral is shaped by two forces that pull in opposite directions. The marketing team wants the collateral to stand out. The medical team wants the collateral to be safe.
Every pharma collateral goes through a review process designed to answer two questions. Is the content medically accurate? Is it regulatory compliant? Both are essential. But there is a third question that almost no review process asks.
A busy specialist in a metro city sees MR after MR through the day. In some specialties, the number is overwhelming. Each MR carries a visual aid. Each one gets somewhere between 60 and 120 seconds.