A Launch Date Is a Launch Date: What 25 Years in Advertising Taught Me About Product Disclosure

What My Past Life in Advertising Agencies Taught Me About Managing PDSs

By Jenny Calcott, Operations Director, Mayflower Consulting

I spent a large part of my career working in advertising operations and production. When I finally saw the light and moved into product and PDS management, I was amazed at how transferable the skills I had used for over 25 years were.

On the surface, they look like very different environments. One is associated with creative concepts, campaign shoots, artwork, edits and media deadlines. The other is associated with regulatory disclosure, governance frameworks and compliance sign-offs.

In reality, the underlying mechanics are remarkably similar.

A launch date is a launch date

In agency production, campaign timelines are immovable because media has been booked, suppliers have been scheduled, and the client has committed to delivery to their business. Moving a date is possible, but it is never neutral, and it is never simple.

PDS updates and product changes operate under the same logic. There are regulatory timeframes, board calendars, print windows and distribution commitments that create a fixed point in time. Once that date is visible to stakeholders, the only sensible approach is to build a realistic plan backwards from it and manage the critical path carefully.

The same goes for an ad campaign; you work back from the delivery date, taking all the key dates into account.

Many experts, one coherent outcome

The team required to deliver a campaign is made up of highly capable specialists. Creative, media, design, digital, client, project and account management, legal and production all bring their expertise, and each function is rightly focused on its own deliverables.

Delivery of a disclosure roll involves a similar mix of specialists. Product Management ensure the product design, distribution and management align with consumer duty and regulations, Legal and compliance focus on regulatory integrity, investment teams focus on strategy and performance, operations focus on feasibility and risk, and marketing focuses on positioning and clarity.

In both environments, the role of the project leader is to hold the whole picture. The output must feel cohesive to the end user, even though it has been assembled and approved by multiple contributors with different priorities.

Version control is not administrative, it is critical

We’ve all seen the memes about new.doc, newfinal.doc, newfinalfinal.doc! This is a reality, and anyone who has worked in an ad agency will remember the consequences of circulating the wrong file or working from an outdated version. What looks like a small oversight can quickly become an expensive mistake. Especially if a wrong price appears or an unsubstantiated claim is made.

I’ve seen this happen. A lower price was published for potatoes in a press ad, and the large national supermarket chain had to honour it. The agency was liable for the difference in the cost of every kilogram sold, as the approved version of the ad was correct. As you can imagine, this didn't go down too well with the senior leaders. What did we learn? Something that we already knew, of course. Version control and a robust sign-off process are not optional; they are critical. Processes were refined, last-minute changes were reduced by clear communication throughout the team, and the mistake never happened again.

In PDS management, the stakes are even higher. An outdated fee table, an inconsistent risk disclosure or a missed update can create regulatory exposure and reputational damage. Strong document discipline, clear naming conventions and structured review processes are not bureaucratic preferences; they are safeguards.

Constraints shape the work, they do not remove judgment

To build a successful campaign, you need brand guidelines, for it to comply with advertising standards and to be completely locked down in its claims. There are rules about what can be said and how it must be supported.

PDSs are shaped by legislation and regulatory guidance, with prescribed content and mandatory disclosures. The presence of these constraints does not remove the need for thoughtful judgment. In fact, it increases it.

The challenge in both settings is to work within the rules while still producing something clear, considered and useful for the person reading or viewing it.

Detail has a disproportionate impact

During the production of the final materials required, small details such as colour profiles, asset dimensions, supers, or resolution can have outsized consequences. The cumulative effect of small inaccuracies can undermine an otherwise strong piece of work and cause the stakeholders involved a lot of sleepless nights!

Very early in my career, I overlooked a critical element in how the artwork was set up for a whisky client flyer with a gold foil border. I didn’t know enough about the file setup to brief the designer to create it as the printer required. I relied on their knowledge, which was a mistake as they didn’t know either! The job was printed, and when it came to adding the gold foil, it wouldn’t line up. The options were to reprint the whole job or to try a workaround. The cost to reprint would have come directly from my employer’s bottom line, so it wasn’t an option. The upshot was that the client got their print job with the workaround, and it certainly wasn’t as good as it should have been. I learned that the devil is in the detail and also, to ensure your stakeholders have the right expertise for the job at hand!

In a PDS, precision is non-negotiable. Fee calculations, risk descriptions, investment option details and operational processes must align perfectly. Attention to detail is not about perfectionism for its own sake; it is about protecting customers and the organisation from avoidable error.

Stakeholder management is central to delivery

Project leaders quickly learn that technical expertise alone is not enough. Clients shift direction, creative teams refine ideas, budgets evolve and timelines tighten. Maintaining progress requires diplomacy, clarity and steady communication.

Product and PDS environments are similar in that multiple stakeholders hold legitimate and sometimes competing priorities. Legal teams are focused on compliance integrity, investment teams are focused on strategy, executives are focused on commercial outcomes and boards are focused on governance.

Whether it be in an ad agency or an investment management company, the role of the project leader is to navigate those perspectives constructively and arrive at an outcome that is balanced, defensible and aligned to the broader strategy.

Process enables speed rather than preventing it

In any agency, established production workflows exist to create great work, prevent costly rework, to provide clarity about who signs off what and when to meet the prescribed timelines. When those processes are respected, work moves more smoothly, the creative ideas are great and the client is happy!

In PDS management, governance frameworks, templates and approval matrices serve the same purpose. They create transparency and accountability and they reduce ambiguity at critical points in the timeline. Far from slowing teams down, well-designed process gives people confidence to move forward and keep the DDC happy!

Capacity management requires visibility and discipline

Agency teams rarely focus on a single campaign at a time. There are always multiple projects at different stages, each with its own urgency and complexity. Clear resourcing plans and honest assessments of capacity are essential.

Product teams face similar pressures, particularly during annual update rolls or periods of regulatory change. Without visibility of workload and a willingness to prioritise carefully, teams risk overcommitment and burnout.

Composure influences outcomes

One of the most transferable lessons from my life in agency land is the importance of remaining steady under pressure. Tight timelines and late changes are part of the environment. The response to those pressures often determines whether the team feels in control or overwhelmed.

Too often, in my past life, I had the pleasure of working with folks who tended to ‘fly off the handle’ – a creative ego at midnight on a new business pitch, anyone? How I responded to those people could make or break how the team then performed together to deliver the project. Keeping a calm head and diffusing the situation by taking the time to understand their issues, resolving them in the best way you are able and not leaning into the chaos, was all in a day’s work!

In PDS and product work, composure has the same effect. When the project leader remains calm, focused and clear about next steps, the team is better able to navigate complexity and deliver quality work.

Ultimately, it is about the person at the other end

In advertising, it is easy to become absorbed in internal debate and lose sight of the audience. In product and PDS environments, it is equally easy to become absorbed in regulation and internal governance.

However, both disciplines exist to serve real people. Whether it is a customer responding to a campaign or a member reading a disclosure document, clarity and trust are fundamental.

Moving from the ad agency world into PDS and product management hasn’t felt like a departure from familiar territory. It felt like applying the same core disciplines in a more heavily regulated context, with equally as passionate people!

Clear planning, strong stakeholder management, disciplined process and respect for detail are universal. The final output may be different, but the fundamentals of delivering complex work through multiple stakeholders, to a fixed deadline, remain very much the same. And I’m glad I’m here to make a difference.