Your Chief Compliance Officer Should Be Your Marketers’ Best Friend

The words “legal and compliance” are enough to make most marketers’ blood run cold. Here are four reasons why they shouldn’t.

The oat milk brand Oatly ran a memorable ad several years ago. The headline: “We can’t legally call this ‘ice cream.’ But you still can.”

Regardless of whether there’s such a thing as marketing regulations for dairy alternatives, the ad is a tongue-in-cheek example of the frequent tension between marketing, legal, and compliance.

Working in health care marketing—or any regulated field for that matter—you should be on a first-name basis with your Chief Compliance Officer. Here’s why.

1. They have the copy bible for your writers.

Okay, maybe not exactly a bible, but your legal and compliance partners keep track of language you can and can’t use in marketing and communications. Not because their favorite word is “no,” but because there are often state and federal regulations.

For example, some states have restrictions against using superlatives like “best” or “highest-ranked” to describe certain products or businesses, especially if you can’t back it up. All helpful stuff to know before your copywriter pitches the perfect headline.

2. They can help your digital marketers leverage data.

When it comes to data, marketing campaigns typically have two main goals: drive and demonstrate growth, and avoid creeping out your customers (which could also get you in hot water legally).

Your legal and compliance team can help you achieve the first by ensuring the second.

Take the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a set of standards for protecting patient data. This includes highly sensitive data like their doctor and medical conditions—what’s called private health information (PHI)—as well as personally identifiable information (PII), like their name, mailing address, and email.

That second one, PII, is the type of data typically used in marketing and communications. Your legal and compliance team can help you navigate opt-ins, encryption, content, and more. They’ll probably also loop in your other new best friend, your organization’s Chief Information Security Officer.

3. They can help you create stellar customer experiences.

Texting? Your compliance team can tell you all about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Tweeting? They can help advise you on keeping PHI safely off the platform.

4. They’ll help your marketing team sleep better at night.

Your legal, compliance and information security partners are focused on much more than risk mitigation. They can help you protect your brand’s integrity and build customer loyalty and trust. That means peace of mind, so you can focus on results, not red tape.