As a member of BASE’s content excellence team, Jakob specialises in helping pharma marketing teams optimise their content creation processes and guiding them through strategies to manage the industry's ever-growing digital content demands.
In this interview, Jakob discusses how content reuse has evolved in recent years, the real-world benefits he's witnessed in pharma, and how marketing teams can get started with their own content reuse strategy.
What does your work at BASE involve?
JK: I’ve been working at
BASE for about seven years now. We help pharma companies across all of the value chain, from research and development to sales and marketing. I sit on a team called content excellence, working with a small group of colleagues focused on all the trends that we see within commercial content. This typically involves the implementation of Veeva Vault Promomats, but we’re also branching out to cover all the systems related to Veeva and the whole content ecosystem.
What drove the shift towards content reuse in pharma?
JK: At BASE, we had a pretty steady growth rate leading up to Covid. When Covid hit, we saw how pharma companies started digitising content much more. We had to find new ways of reaching healthcare professionals (HCPs). Typically, sales reps go to the HCP and show presentations on an iPad or something like that—it's quite a traditional way of doing marketing. So, ultimately, Covid was one of the first things that really challenged the way that pharma companies engaged with HCPs.
Covid was one of the first things that really challenged the way that pharma companies engaged with HCPs
Digitalisation had already started, but suddenly there was a growing demand and interest in trying to reach customers in new ways. This meant that the volumes of content increased, which put a lot of pressure on marketing teams and medical, legal, and regulatory (MLR) reviewers. We saw that marketing teams were looking for new ways of getting more content approved faster—one of the most important factors in that was content reuse.
Global brand teams were also partnering up with agencies of record to build their content, which was quite costly. This also meant that, even though pharma companies had all the design files, elements, and so on that they needed for content reuse, their intellectual property (IP) was sitting with their agency too.
Marketing teams were looking for new ways of getting content approved faster—one of the most important factors in that was content reuse
At this time, we saw pharma companies trying to take this IP back, put it into a digital asset management (DAM) system, and empower brand managers to assemble content themselves in these new authoring solutions.
Was there any resistance along the way?
JK: The pharma industry is a pretty slow adopter in terms of new technology and processes. And some of these processes—such as building content via an agency—are quite ingrained in the way that most pharma companies work. Most brand managers are not trained in building their own content. This means that the technology catches up a lot faster than processes in the pharma industry.
Technology catches up a lot faster than processes in the pharma industry
When you look beyond pharma, however, you see that things like content reuse, modular content, and content authoring solutions have been around quite a long time.
Pharma relies on very compliance-heavy processes that we need to revamp and change
Just look at the fast moving consumer goods industry. Take
Procter & Gamble, for instance. You can see they build new websites from the same template. Just the logos and imagery are changed for the different brands they have.
Pharma is huge and relies on very compliance-heavy processes that we need to revamp and change.
Where do you see the real value of content reuse in pharma?
JK: It's really on that creative side that I see most of the benefits. Even though, as I mentioned, brand managers may not be trained to build content like an agency, they’re still more agile in their way of thinking.
Brand managers can easily assemble their content much faster… they’re saving agency costs, which was eating up a lot of the brand budget before
On the creative side—with Shaman and other content authoring tools—we’ve seen big benefits. Brand managers can easily assemble their content much faster. They have all of the design elements collected in the digital asset management system, so they’re saving agency costs, which was eating up a lot of the brand budget before.
However, I think it's important to know that while creativity is good, we also don't want too much of it. Imagine you're sitting in a global team and you need your local affiliates to start adopting your global campaign. They need to translate that into Spanish, German—all the different individual languages—but you still want them to adhere to the global principles and the design guidelines you've put out.
So while you want them to be creative and have flexibility within the local and regional framework, you still need them to stick to the design elements that you put forward. Content reuse is a very good way of controlling your local affiliates by giving them the elements that they can use. You can control the flexibility they have while still giving them a feeling of creativity.
Content reuse is a very good way of controlling your local affiliates… you can control the flexibility they have while still giving them a feeling of creativity
I'm working with a few different companies right now that are all facing a similar issue—their local affiliates have developed presentations that look and feel very different from one another. This means that when sales reps meet with HCPs, even though they're presenting materials for the same brand, the visual style and messaging are completely different. It doesn’t feel like the same company. This can be confusing, of course, and you don’t provide that 'top of mind' feeling needed to build trust with your HCPs.
It's something we see in multiple cases in this practice. It's something we solve by implementing a design system to really try and stick to those reusable elements. What works for one company might not work for the other—they’re experiencing different pain points.
Are there any challenges when working with MLR teams on reused content?
JK: MLR is often seen as a bottleneck, but it’s the gatekeeper in pharma and a very important process for ensuring the safety of patients. It's not something we can skip, and it's something that will always be there in the pharma industry, so we need to respect their ways of working. I've seen the biggest success in having the MLR reviewers accept that they might not gain a lot of value in the beginning.
I've seen the biggest success in having the MLR reviewers accept that they might not gain a lot of value in the beginning
MLR reviewers won't see huge benefits on their side, but they’re enabling creative teams, and it doesn’t increase their workload. So in this sense, they can be open to working in those new ways. We haven't solved the issue for MLR reviewers, but we've developed a working relationship where they accept how things are being done.
We haven't solved the issue for MLR reviewers, but we've developed a working relationship where they accept how things are being done
One of the challenges we experience with MLR teams is around modular content. We often ask the MLR team to review a module—a standalone module—instead of a final piece. And while they can agree to approve it, they often ask to see the module in its final context. Otherwise what you say in the module’s context might be true, but it could be portrayed differently in the final material.
Another challenge is that even when they see the final asset, they still need to check it. If another MLR reviewer approved the module, the second and final asset reviewer would still feel the necessity to go back and double check the module. That's simply the way they work.
In principle, content reuse should improve the MLR team’s ways of working, but it’s something that needs to change in their mindset. We also need to respect that they are thorough and they need context and they need the time to go in depth.
Do you have any advice for companies looking to implement a content reuse strategy?
JK: When we're talking about
content reuse, it's a maturity scale, with modular content at the very end. So you would start by getting a
DAM system where all your assets are stored. This means you can take back your intellectual property, including your images, elements, and so on. Then you can point your agencies to your DAM. This is the first level of maturity.
Content reuse is a maturity scale, with modular content at the very end
Most pharma companies have some sort of approval system—start by looking there and seeing what you can improve. Some pharma companies use Promomats as their dump system, so that's an easy first step. But otherwise, decide on a strategy for how you want to work towards content reuse. Do you want to use Promomats as the dump system? Do you want to use another system? Do you want a content authoring solution sometime in the future?
At the very end of the maturity scale, you would have a content authoring solution like Shaman, where all of your modular content workflows are up and running in your Promomats system. Everything would be seamlessly integrated and you could just plug and play, and drop all the elements into the design system from the DAM. Content reuse is a journey that most pharma companies are now embarking on, and they’re at different levels of maturity.
Most pharma companies have some sort of approval system—start by looking there and seeing what you can improve
At least that's what we [at BASE] can help out with. What we typically do is we come in, we look at the maturity of the company, we look at their tech stack, we look at how they are working, what their processes are, and then we make a content reuse strategy with them.
How about advice for measuring the success of content?
JK: There are multiple ways that you can measure KPIs, for instance, and this goes beyond systems. Have you reduced your agency costs? What's the turnaround time for building an email or an interactive visual aid? Do you go from ten days to maybe two or three days?
Ultimately, when you go into Promomats, how long does content take to review? Does your process make life easier for MLR teams? When you’re reusing content, you can also look at which material was used, and how many times it was reused. You can pull all of these things out and turn them into valuable insights. There are a lot of data points. But you need to start at a brand level. After that, you can typically pull the other elements from Promomats or a content authoring tool.
What are the limitations of content reuse?
JK: For me, the limitation of content reuse is organisational readiness—you need top level buy-in. This is the most important thing. There needs to be a strategic focus on streamlining and improving the way you create content. It needs to be a top line priority.
But at the same time, you need to work from the bottom up. You need to ensure that it's a way of working that your employees and teams buy into. Otherwise, if they still have the budget available and they don't buy into the process, they’ll bypass it and go to the agency. We see that quite often.
For me, the limitation of content reuse is organisational readiness—you need top level buy-in
There's a lot of things in your architecture that also need to be updated. For me, that's still the easier part—getting the tech ready. But of course you need to implement a content authoring tool. Everything needs to be integrated. Most likely your Veeva Promomats process needs to be improved too. But all of that is easy when you have the organisational buy-in!
How does the future of content reuse look to you? Are there any viable alternatives?
JK: I think the next big thing will be AI, which will build on top of all the solutions that you already have. You need digital asset management; you need MLR approval; you need a design system, an ordering solution, and so on. But then you can start automating things.
For instance, [at BASE] we've built a few different plugins in Veeva to aid the MLR process, auto translate content, and help with auto-tagging. I know that's something
Shaman also does. Incorporating AI into this tech stack will really help.
Why should an MLR reviewer, who's already got a stack of 100 pieces they need to review, sit down and correct typos?
I think it's important to understand the limitations of AI, though—it could never replace a normal MLR reviewer. But MLR is still a bottleneck. MLR teams have growing workloads, so why should an MLR reviewer, who's already got a stack of 100 pieces they need to review, sit down and correct typos? All of that can easily be handled by AI. I see a huge benefit in incorporating AI into current processes.
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