Involve key stakeholders in the concept stages
Making a change to video content isn’t as easy as deleting or rephrasing something in a piece of text. Having to reshoot video or re-record audio can take time, especially if you’re contracting with a third-party agency. It’s also a lot more costly to reshoot or re-edit a segment than it is to change a typo.
If the key MLR stakeholders–such as regulatory and medical teams–can evaluate marketing’s storyboards, sketches, and scripts pre-production, you can make necessary changes before anything is officially produced in a video. One of Vodori’s Pepper Flow® customers recommends some ways to supercharge your digital MLR review at this stage:
“Having accurate mockups of the on-screen text, images, and voice over is incredibly helpful in avoiding delays and extra cost for late-stage changes.” – Maddi E Myers, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Systems Project Manager at ARKRAY USA
Leave frame-accurate comments and annotations
Once a video has made it to ad/promo review, there are techniques you can use to leave great feedback. When you want to leave a comment, pause the video and drop your feedback on a precise location in the video frame. Drawing a box around an area of concern and leaving an associated comment can help communicate exactly what you’re asking for. Next-gen MLR solutions, like Pepper Flow, come with robust annotation and commenting tools to make video review easier and significantly cut down on review time and circulations.
Be specific with your regulatory feedback
In giving video feedback, the MLR team needs to clearly communicate changes. If an image needs to be swapped or dialogue needs to be rephrased, don’t say “it could be better,” or “we might want to change it.” Be direct and unambiguous.
However, some video feedback doesn’t require immediate action but is still useful. When your MLR team is commenting on a video frame-by-frame, consider color coding comments to distinguish between something that requires action and something that is just food for thought.
When working with a third-party agency, it is very important that your MLR team explain the “why” behind annotations or comments. If the third party appreciates what’s at stake, they’ll know you’re not being nit-picky. As you continue to build your relationship, you will help them build their knowledge of things to be aware of when creating videos for your brand or company.
Educate your team on common causes for regulatory rejection of a video
It’s important for your MLR team to keep track of their reasons for having to revise or reject video content. Such insights can act as a cornerstone of a process improvement strategy.
Once you’ve reviewed a number of videos and have accumulated five to ten that have required revisions or rejections, set up a meeting with your MLR/video production teams. As a group, look for patterns–what do all of the videos have in common? Is there a particular claim, use of imagery, or phrasing of a benefit that consistently needs revising? Note it and use this information to update your MLR review best practices. Build it into training and SOP documents, share it with your video content creation partners, and set benchmarks around it.
A view of MLR review’s digital future
The demand for life sciences video content is only increasing. Having the right MLR tool in place is necessary to make sure it’s compliant, and Vodori’s Pepper Flow has specific video review features to help you move fast and maintain compliance. We’re here to help you navigate this world of digital MLR review.
“The Pepper Flow video reviewing capability is in my top 3 favorite features!” – Maddi E Myers, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Systems Project Manager at ARKRAY USA
