Shout out to those in Bank Marketing and Compliance. You have it tougher than most when it comes to getting approved content out the door. As part of a select group of essential service industries that are highly regulated by government agencies, compliance requirements are complex and numerous.
The ramifications of a campaign delay, or alternatively, a breach, can run into the millions of dollars. This puts pressure on the relationship between those charged with creating and launching timely content, and those that need to ensure precision.
It’s an age-old rivalry, this to and fro between Marketing and Compliance. It’s often frustrating, time consuming and therefore inefficient for both sides. But the friction is getting worse as every year there seems to be more assets being generated than ever before. And that’s because there are. Increases in digital media spend and scalable content tools have seen Marketing Compliance teams peppered with requests for approvals which is causing huge bottlenecks that nobody is happy with.
To understand this better, IntelligenceBank undertook an analysis of anonymized, aggregated client data from major banking institutions. We identified the types and volume of review feedback as well as the time attributed to the process. One standout finding was that content reviews between the two departments at a medium sized bank often exceed 2,970 comments per year.
You may feel like you’ve lived every one of those comments – particularly if they are repetitive or contradictory.
The data contained in this report reveals behavioral trends and through that, highlights the way toward faster content approval through automation and improved interdepartmental collaboration.
What Are Examples of Feedback from Compliance Teams to Marketing Teams?
Due to life-changing decisions customers make when choosing banking products, the sector is understandably tightly governed to ensure accurate and clear disclosure in all marketing materials. Obviously that means the bulk of feedback from Compliance to Marketing revolves around reducing risk, but it also encompasses upholding brand standards and standard language proofing.
Here’s an example of the type comments made:
Legal & Regulatory Compliance:
Missing / Incorrect / Outdated Disclaimers and High Risk Words
“Need the long form ‘Member FDIC’ disclosure”
“Missing disclosure”
“Requires ‘Data rates and fees…’ mobile disclosure”
“Required disclosure mark and the ‘Data Rates…’ disclosure”
“Need the IP disclosure for App Store and Google Play”
“This APR is not correct.”
“Use the new disclosure which includes ‘Variable’ at the beginning”
“Please use the version of the disclosure that is in all caps”
“Ensure this is the current date when published.”
“This disclosure is now standard in the footer”
“Update ALL instances to the correct disclosure”
“Where will this disclosure reside?”
“Are all required disclosures easily visible or viewable?”
“If using the rate of return, does it state the rate as an ‘APY’?”
“Is the period of time the APY will be offered stated?”
“Have all links been tested?”
“Must provide minimum balance for each tier of a tiered account”
“Shouldn’t the income restriction be here??”
“Zero Liability statements in marketing a debit card include…”
“If the APY is stated, the marketing also includes the following…”
“This will need to be the disclosure which includes the % of…”
“Does the animation have X times the national average?”
“Incomplete endorsement. I recommend we be more specific”
“I don’t believe this is the correct restrictive endorsement…”
Language:
Overstatements / High Risk Words / Inconsistencies / Grammar / Punctuation
“We can not use ‘best’ if we can’t support that claim.”
“We cannot say we are backed by [Brand name]”
“We don’t need the ‘™’ here since it is already used”
“I don’t think we need two decimal places for a 0%”
“Change ‘Best’ to ‘Better’”
“This instance of QC can be dropped to align with the control title”
“Change ‘Additionally’ to something similar to ‘This includes…’”
“Change ‘deposited twice’ to ‘check deposited twice’”
“Switch to ‘single payment monthly’”
“Change ‘We are excited’ under the exception rule.”
“Update quality control and ‘QC’ references throughout document to ‘QA’”
“Change ‘can’ to ‘could’ or ‘may’ which was a comment in the offline review.”
“Change ‘originating account’” to “’payor account”
“missing ‘to’ before ‘stock’?”
“remove extra ‘.’”
“Remove period at end of heading please.”
“Missing a comma”
“Is this comma necessary?”
Brand
Logos, Imagery, Colors, Tone of Voice
“Not sure this is a credible brand tone.”
“Is there a reason this is a larger font?”
“Does it need a mark of any kind?”
“Not sure what this means?”
How Many Review Notes Do Compliance Teams Create for Marketing Teams in a Year?
Think about the amount of assets your organization produces in a year. Think about all the stakeholders from management, to brand, agency and compliance. Think about how many notes passing the review baton back and forth. Spoiler alert – it’s in the thousands. In fact, we’ve quantified it in the table below.
Based on anonymous client data extracted from small, medium and large organizations we were able to quantify the immense volume of comments occupying the Legal and Marketing team’s time. The volumes below depend on several factors, including the size of the marketing team, the complexity of the content, and the frequency of campaigns.
The average amount of comments per marketing asset ran at 10.
These review notes represent all the times compliance flagged content for revision, from legal compliance to brand consistency.
While these numbers are good to know and prove ‘evidence of industry’ the purpose of analyzing the volume and nature of review notes was to assess how much of the back-and-forth could be eliminated. Specifically, how many notes were made up of repetitive corrections for standard rules that could be identified and addressed right away.
The thing is, for many compliance professionals, the review process feels like a bad case of deja vu. Because although the documented process of approvals helps ensure both marketing and compliance objectives are achieved, it’s often repetitive and frustrating.
Below is a summary of results feedback type per comment type. The breakdowns are consistent across all teams, regardless of their size.
How Can Automation Reduce the Need for Repetitive Manual Reviews in Compliance Checks?
Compliance teams’ ability to keep up with reviews in light of expanding content requirements and short deadlines is becoming increasingly compromised. Compounding this is the sense of frustration around the time wasted on repetitive corrections relating to fundamental banking compliance laws.
While nobody doubts the critical importance of reviews, the ultimate goal for both Marketing and Compliance teams is to dial down the amount of exchange between Marketing and Legal. That doesn’t mean there’s an expectation of faultless marketing material first time every time, but rather an unclogging of the approval bottlenecks by getting well known elements correct before they reach Compliance.
Automation can significantly reduce this load by streamlining the process of checking content against established guidelines. Here’s how:
AI-Powered Content Risk Detection Scanning
Risky language, such as exaggerated financial claims or incomplete disclosures can all be flagged in real-time either at brief, copy or artwork stage. Scanned reports can even be generated to monitor compliance on live webpages and Google Ads. The platform identifies potential risks using custom rules or pre-prepared industry specific out-of-the-box rule libraries such as FINRA, FDIC and the FCA. This technology allows marketers to take a proactive approach to standard compliance issues before submitting content for final approval. It greatly reduces the manual effort required in the review process while providing a high degree of accuracy.
Automated Disclaimer Insertion
The software includes a disclaimer engine that automatically populates briefs with the appropriate legal disclaimers based on the medium, location, and product. This ensures that all necessary legal information is included without manual intervention, streamlining the compliance workflow.
Dynamic Creative Templates
Pre-approved creative templates that lock in essential compliance requirements while allowing for customization are a tremendous help for high volume tightly regulated organizations. They allow marketers to create compliant content efficiently, minimizing the need for extensive manual reviews. They are especially useful when dealing with large remote teams and franchisees.
Content Approval Workflow Automation
Workflows are the vehicle that sees creative production through from brief to launch. They integrate with brand approved assets and importantly provide high visibility to all stakeholders when it comes to review comments, approval history and version control. They incorporate functions such as task management boards, proofing, markups and live content review tracking. Workflows connect to popular third party software like Adobe and Getty as well as your entire digital creative asset repository.
Automated Brand Portals
Online brand portals help stem the tide of marketing requests, automate answers to frequently asked questions and automate access to approved branding elements. Having 24/7 access to the latest downloadable brand assets minimizes the chance of internal and external content creators going off-piste. By using automated brand portals, teams can self-serve, with accurate content that automatically aligns with brand standards reducing the need for multiple rounds of review and approval.
- What Specific Legal and Compliance Tasks Can Be Automated to Improve Accuracy and Efficiency?
Here are the day to day functions performed by finance compliance teams the world over that can be greatly sped up – yet at the same time – be less vulnerable to human error:
Disclosure Checks
Automated systems significantly improve the efficiency of checking required legal disclaimers and regulatory disclosures in marketing materials. For example, tools powered by AI can automatically detect whether mandatory disclaimers – such as interest rate disclosures, terms and conditions, or risk warnings – are included in financial ads, insurance offers, or promotional campaigns.
Incredibly, automation can also check the visibility and positioning of these disclosures, verifying that they are placed where consumers can easily find them, following best practices and regulatory guidelines. By automating this task, teams can save valuable time that would otherwise be spent manually reviewing each piece of content, while also ensuring that nothing is overlooked or omitted, ultimately reducing the likelihood of fines or legal challenges.
Risk Identification
Using AI-powered risk scanning tools identify potentially misleading statements or content that could violate compliance regulations. For instance, unsubstantiated guarantees, or misleading representations about a product’s benefits or returns. Automation tools can cross-reference content with predefined risk rules or regulations (such as truth-in-advertising standards or financial disclosure laws), instantly flagging content that might lead to consumer deception or regulatory breaches.
In addition, risk scanning can help identify non-compliant offers, such as promotions that fail to disclose critical terms or conditions, or content that violates advertising restrictions. These automated scans drastically reduce manual effort and human error by quickly identifying risky language or elements, enabling compliance teams to focus on more complex review issues rather than sifting through large volumes of content for potential problems.
Brand Consistency
Automation plays a key role in this process by flagging out of date logos, incorrect fonts, color and messaging. It can even pick up whether logos are scaled correctly, and that the brand’s primary font is used in headings or body text etc. This ensures that all content, regardless of where it is used, maintains the brand’s integrity, protects its reputation, and adheres to legal and compliance standards. In large-scale campaigns, where multiple teams or external vendors may be involved, automation helps guarantee that the brand message is unified and legally compliant across all materials, without the need for multiple rounds of manual review.
How Can Automation Enhance Consistency in Language and Terminology Across Marketing Materials?
Consistency is crucial in the financial services industry, not just for compliance, but for brand integrity. Automation can help by:
Standardizing Terms
Automatically checking for consistent use of legal or financial terms like “annual percentage rate (APR)” or “terms and conditions.”
Enforcing Brand Guidelines
Ensuring that marketing materials comply with internal brand guidelines (e.g., tone of voice, logo placement, color schemes) to maintain consistency across campaigns.
Reducing Manual Checks
Automation reduces the need for manual proofreading, which can be time-consuming and error-prone, ensuring that all content remains consistent across channels.
What Potential Time and Cost Savings Can Automation Bring to Compliance and Legal Review Processes?
Relying on manual processes to perform tasks that can be performed using automation and AI is a no brainer. The issue comes down to the Return On Investment (ROI) of human vs machine. The ROI is weighed up on these factors:
Reducing Review Times / Lower Labor Costs
With automated tools scanning documents instantly for compliance issues, review times can be cut down from days to hours, or even minutes. The findings from our deep dive into our banking clients’ review habits, we have been able to quantify a range of potential time savings using automation and AI can bring:
- Increased Accurancy
Removing the risk of human omission or inconsistent feedback, automation provides more consistent responses that have been ratified by senior management. - Faster Time to Market
Marketing teams can get their campaigns approved faster, leading to more timely launches and less missed opportunities.
While Return on Investment (ROI) will differ greatly according to the volume of activity and complexity of an organization’s content production, there are some benchmarks that can help you determine potential ROI.
IntelligenceBank used anonymous amalgamated data from its client pool to measure the potential Full Time Employment (FTE) savings. The findings showed the average number of comments on a marketing asset, such as a promotional email, downloadable guide or display ads ran at 10 per asset. The average time saved resolving each comment via AI rule scanning ran at 15 minutes per comment.
Therefore, if your organization produces even as little as five assets per week, your organization can save ~2,600, or ~1.3 FTE in review time.
Changing the Dynamic Between Marketing and Compliance
Research showed that 80% of both Marketing and Legal/Compliance teams feel they have an “us vs. them” relationship. But when it comes down to it, their goals are more aligned that they may first think. They all want the same outcome – effective compliant creative in the market and off their desks.
If you’d like to find out more about how to automate your marketing compliance, we’d love to show you. Contact us for a live demonstration here.
