A legacy agency model built for cost control no longer fit an innovation-led, heavily regulated landscape across 40+ markets. Medical-legal-regulatory review slowed everything, content was rebuilt market by market, and fees rewarded inputs rather than outcomes.
VA rebuilt it into one compliant agency ecosystem on output-based remuneration with a bonus-malus, a produce-once-adapt-everywhere content engine and a formal performance-appraisal cadence — sequenced over a five-year roadmap ending in GenAI-enabled content.
VP Global Marketing, Head of Content, Head of Marketing Procurement
The strategic problem
A legacy agency model built for cost control no longer fit an innovation-led, heavily regulated marketing landscape across over 40 markets. Medical, legal and regulatory review slowed everything; content was reproduced market by market; the model rewarded inputs, not outcomes; and no formal appraisal told good agencies from weak ones. The company needed a systemic shift, not another procurement round.
Diagnose & Design
VA ran a marketing & production ecosystem audit mapping spend, review bottlenecks and content duplication across 40+ markets, then a gap & maturity assessment that distinguished genuine MLR-driven delays from structural inefficiency, market benchmarking of fees against regulated-sector references, and scenario modelling & forecast simulation of where a co-creation model with shared KPIs would release speed and compliance value; AURA/FRC (Fulltime Ratecard Calculator) valorised legacy SOWs to establish the baseline the multi-year transformation roadmap was priced against.
Ecosystem & Remuneration
Partner ecosystem design produced a One Agency Ecosystem with Procurement, Marketing and agencies aligned on shared KPIs; remuneration model design shifted from input-based fees to output-based with a performance bonus-malus; a content engine – master compliant assets produced once and adapted across markets – was designed with vendor scouting & shortlisting from the 5,000+ database to identify the right specialist capabilities; scoping & SOW design (AURA/Scoping Tool, AURA/Strategic Mapping Expectation) structured both the initial tender and the five-year roadmap ending in a GenAI-enabled content capability.
Rollout & relationship management
Contracting & onboarding embedded the MLR-aware workflow and shared output KPIs into binding partner agreements; AURA/Planner back-planned each year of the five-year rollout and handover, rollout & commitment tracking verified that output-based commitments made at tender were honoured in successive waves; VA’s relationship management ran continuously through the transition, adjusting the model as the regulatory landscape evolved rather than treating go-live as the finish line.
Execution Oversight
Briefing & estimate review filtered out scope inflation before MLR, and production cost validation enforced the output-based rate logic line by line; bid governance (triple/double/direct award) replaced agency discretion on production; usage rights, talent & licensing management was embedded in every master-asset brief; AURA/BMT (Budget Management Template) tracked production bids end to end; and wrap & final reconciliation closed each campaign wave against the baseline.
Performance Measurement
A formal agency-performance system runs on a fixed cadence: KPIs and scorecards set in governance design are tracked via partner performance evaluation on a 90/180/360 appraisal cadence, with AURA/Scoring Model surfacing rating distribution and underperformance, cost saving and cost avoidance reported separately, and ROI & efficiency analysis repositioning Procurement from gatekeeper to innovation enabler (today AURA delivers closure reports; full performance measurement is on the roadmap). Illustrative: 16% saving on content production, 14% cost avoidance from reuse rather than rebuild, 35% faster review cycles.
Why VA
In regulated marketing the prize is speed with compliance, not just lower fees. VA designs the ecosystem, the remuneration and the measurement as one integrated system – tested against the MLR reality, not assumed away – so output-based value is real and auditable across every market.
Common questions
What is output-based agency remuneration?
It is paying agencies for defined outputs and business outcomes rather than for time and inputs, with a performance bonus-malus — so incentives reward effectiveness, reuse and speed rather than the volume of hours booked.
How do you cut cost in a regulated (MLR) environment without adding risk?
By separating genuine medical-legal-regulatory delays from structural inefficiency, then producing master compliant assets once and adapting them across markets — the compliance step is protected while duplication and rebuild cost are removed.
What does a five-year roadmap deliver that a procurement round does not?
A procurement round resets fees; the roadmap sequences a systemic shift across people, partners, process and platform — ending in a GenAI-enabled content capability — with a formal appraisal cadence that keeps the model improving as regulation evolves.