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Part 3 - Best Practice Guide to Managing Compliance of New Financial Promotion Materials
- Dave Moore
- May 29
- 5 min read
This Guide is part of our Best Practice Guide to Managing Compliance of New Financial Promotion Materials.
If you have not already done so, we recommend that you first read the Introduction Section of this Guide. That explains the purpose of the Guide covers and how to use it.
Purpose of the Creation Activity
The business purpose of the Creation activity is to … create compelling content (as per the brief) by the target date (as defined in the plan).
Marketing are normally responsible for this activity
Creation of some content may be outsourced to a 3rd party
Compliance Related Objectives
The main content compliance related objectives for this activity are:
Ensure that the content that is created, is fully compliant and will pass the approval process 1st time around
Ensure that across the organisation, there is a consistent and standardised set of compliance requirements and, ensure that those requirements are met in a consistent way
Minimise any potential negative impact the compliance requirements have on the effectiveness of the content
Minimise the amount of time and effort that needs to be spent on compliance related aspects
Best Practice – Key Elements and Potential Solutions
This section lists the key elements of best practice for this activity and shows for each element:
Which level of best practice they are part of – Standard or Advanced
The solutions that are likely to enable the best practice element to be achieved. (More information about these solutions, can be found in this guide - 7 Solutions That Help Achieve Best Practice)
No. 1 - Finding Content for Reuse
It is easy to find existing content / material that is compliance approved and is available to reuse
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
No. 2 - Reusing Existing Content
Content creators always attempt to reuse existing compliance approved content rather than creating or acquiring new content / materials
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Operating Model
Digital Asset Management System
Work Management System
No. 3 - Standardised Compliance Rules
There is a centralised (and wherever possible, standardised) set of compliance guidance, rules and wording which:
Is approved and managed by Compliance
Is agreed with and understood by Marketing
Can be applied to any type or format of content
Is used across the organisation in a consistent way
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Standardised Compliance Guidance, Rules & Wording
No. 4 - Compliance Requirements Are Understood
Content creators understand all of the compliance requirements for the content they are creating + they know how to meet those requirements
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Standardised Compliance Guidance, Rules & Wording
Compliance Briefing
No. 5 - Compliance Wording
Content creators are provided with or can easily access, the required compliance wording (such as disclaimers, warnings and footnotes) in a format that they can easily add to their content
Level:
Standard
Potential solution(s):
Compliance Briefing
No. 6 - Location & Display of Compliance Wording
Content creators are provided with clear guidance regarding where compliance wording needs to be located and how it needs to be displayed
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Compliance Briefing
No. 7 - Automated Insertion of Compliance Wording
All content is automatically updated with the required compliance wording (such as disclaimers, warnings and footnotes) and that wording is automatically located in the correct location and displayed in the correct way
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Compliance Briefing
Content Creation & Management System
No. 8 - Wording Check
All content is checked – before being submitted for approval – to ensure that all wording related compliance requirements have been met. For example, that the required disclaimers, warnings and footnotes are in the content
Level:
Standard
Potential solution(s):
Operating Model
Work Management System
Compliance Briefing
Compliance Checking System
No. 9 - Wording Check (Automated)
All content is automatically checked – before being submitted for approval – to ensure that all wording related compliance requirements have been met. For example, that the required disclaimers, warnings and footnotes are in the content
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Operating Model
Work Management System
Compliance Briefing
Compliance Checking System
No. 10 - Full Compliance Check
All content is checked – before being submitted for approval – to ensure that all additional compliance requirements have been met
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Operating Model
Work Management System
Compliance Briefing
Compliance Checking System
No. 11 - Full Compliance Check (Automated)
All content is automatically checked – before being submitted for approval – to ensure that all additional compliance requirements have been met
Level:
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Operating Model
Work Management System
Compliance Briefing
Compliance Checking System
No. 12 - Attestation
Content creators attest that they have checked that their content meets all of the compliance requirements
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Operating Model
Work Management System
Compliance Briefing
No. 13 - Version Control
There is a central record that contains information about each version of the content
Level:
Standard
Advanced
Potential solution(s):
Digital Asset Management System
We will be happy to email you a full version of this Guide (in PDF format)
Benefits of Achieving Best Practice
Overall, achieving content compliance best practice for the Approval activity is likely to:
Reduce the amount of time that creators spend on:
Identifying / understanding the compliance requirements
Updating their content to meet the compliance requirements
Checking that their content meets the compliance requirements
Increase the % of cases that pass the approval process 1st time around and therefore, minimising:
The amount of content that has to be reworked
The overall elapsed time need to get content approved
The tables below, give a high-level view of the type and scale of benefits that can be typically realised by achieving a best practice position.
Note. The scale of benefits to be achieved, will depend on:
How far the current way of working is from the best practice way of working
Which level of best practice is achieved – Standard or Advanced
Standard Level
Advanced Level
Do You Have Best Practice?
The following are common indicators that best practice is NOT in place:
Compliance rules and compliance wording are managed via one or more Excel worksheets
More than 10% of content submitted for approval, is not compliant and needs to be reworked
Content creators do not understand or accept the compliance rules and often complain that “compliance” is a business blocker
Updating of content to meet the compliance requirements, takes more than:
10 minutes for multi-page content
5 minutes for half or single page content
Content creators are frustrated by the amount of time that they have to spend on compliance related tasks
The time taken to get content approved often causes target dates – for publishing / distribution – to be missed
If your organisation has any of the above, then it is likely that you are not operating to best practice.
We can help you to:
Define what best practice is appropriate for your organisation
Identify and quantify the benefits that will be realised by achieving best practice
Identify the solution(s) that will enable you to achieve that best practice
Build the business case for any investment that is needed
You may also be interested in our services shown below. These were both designed to help with the activity of content creation.
If you would like to find out more about how we can help ...
Other Activities
Click on the buttons below to view our best practice guides for the other activities involved in the creation of new financial promotion content.
Disclaimer
The information is this guide represents Athena's views based on our experience and also based on input that we have received from a range of different people involved in both creating and approving financial promotion material.
We welcome any thoughts or suggestions regarding:
What "best practice" is or isn't
How best to achieve "best practice"
Anything that you would like to be included in the guide
Copyright Athena Know-How Ltd 2025
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