The consumer products division of a Fortune 50 company develops a breakthrough process for reviewing and approving advertising claims that leverage the expertise of product development, marketing and legal specialists.

At the consumer products division of a Fortune 50 company that had grown through mergers and acquisitions, the process for reviewing and approving advertising claims had become bureaucratic and complex. This was compounded by a significant increase in the number of submissions and a changing regulatory environment. As a result, the company experienced:

• Long delays from the time a claim was submitted to its approval which delayed the roll-out of marketing campaigns
• Lack of shared understanding the evaluation of business risks and guidelines for elevating decisions to senior management
• Lots of unnecessary bureaucracy and a significant drain on resources

A streamlined—yet robust—advertising review process was critical to meeting revenue targets for the division. In addition, leaders in marketing, product development, and legal sought greater clarity on the roles and responsibilities of their organizations in making key decisions.

KCG worked with a team of leaders and subject matter experts from the marketing, product development, and legal divisions to develop the new process and define an implementation plan. Due to the number of constituent groups involved and the highly political nature of the process, we used a workshop format to develop shared solutions and gain buy-in. The project had two phases.

Phase 1: Workshop Preparation - Define Objectives for the Advertising Review Process

Senior representatives from each of the key constituency groups were brought together to clarify the problem and scope the proposed effort. In a half-day session, the team:

• Identified and prioritized the process issues by customer group
• Completed an initial root-cause analysis and identified the key process improvement initiatives that would provide the most value
• Defined an integrated set of success measures
• Identified the key stakeholders (both for knowledge and political influence) who would need to be involved in the process improvement workshop to ensure success
• Defined and assigned responsibility for any pre-work for the workshop

Phase 2: Create the New Process in a Cross Functional Process Improvement Workshop

Key stakeholders were brought together for a one day process improvement workshop. The goals of the workshop were to:

• Agree on the future state process (including support tools/technology and changes in roles/responsibilities)
• Detail solutions for the key improvement initiatives required to achieve the future state process
• Define the short and long term implementation plans and high level supporting business case
• Review the plan with a steering committee for immediate input and approval (end-of-day)

The implementation plan balanced quick hits that immediately alleviated some of the burden with creating a foundation for long term process improvement.

The new advertising review process improved both the speed and the quality of decisions. It contributed to:

• Greater alignment between the advertising review process and the business teams in terms of claim support requirements and risk analysis
• More disciplined risk decision process and communication of risk to management
• Shorter cycle-time to decision in the advertising review process
• Enhanced consistency and quality in advertising review across the company
• Agreed decision escalation process
• More streamlined advertising review process
• Enhanced sharing of knowledge and ability to leverage claims across the company
• Greater preparedness in the event of a challenge