Bridging the Global-Local Gap: How to Ensure Your MedComms Content Gets Used
Your global Medical Communications team has just completed a masterfully crafted slide deck. The scientific storytelling is compelling, the data visualizations are striking, and the strategic messaging is perfectly aligned with your strategic imperatives. You place it in the shared repository, send an announcement email, and wait for the success stories to roll in.
And then…silence.
If this scenario sounds painfully familiar, you’re not alone. In our recent 2025 MedComms Landscape Survey, a staggering 77.4% of global Medical Affairs leaders reported ongoing challenges with affiliate engagement — spanning resource adoption, messaging alignment, and communication effectiveness.
Why Your Medical Communications Content Isn’t Being Used Locally
When it comes to adoption issues, the problem isn’t that affiliates are purposefully noncompliant. Instead, the disconnect between global content creation and local implementation stems from several key factors that are largely outside of an affiliate team’s control.
The “One-Size-Fits-All” Fallacy
Global teams often develop assets aiming for them to be universally applicable. However, local markets have unique needs, regulatory environments, and HCP engagement styles. What works in Germany may not resonate in Japan or Brazil. This “one-size-fits-all” approach — which might more accurately be called “one-size-fits-none” — fails to account for the nuanced requirements of different regions.
Communication Breakdowns
Our survey revealed that email remains the dominant channel for sharing resources with affiliates (86%), followed by internal newsletters (71%). Collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams or SharePoint trail at (41%).
This overreliance on one-way communication channels prevents the kind of back-and-forth cooperation that greases the wheels of local adoption. As one survey respondent succinctly put it: “Global-to-affiliate communication feels like a broadcast, not a collaboration.”
The Missing Context
Even when affiliates access global materials, they often lack critical context. They may not fully understand the strategic rationale behind the resource, how it fits into the broader communications plan, or how (and with whom) it should be used. This “meta”-level information is almost always lacking, leaving local organizations to interpret and implement without appropriate guidance.
Invisible Resources
Perhaps most frustrating, many resources simply go unnoticed. Without effective internal awareness activities, affiliates may not even know new materials exist. In the tsunami of information that floods internal channels daily, your carefully crafted resources can quickly slip through the cracks.
The Strategic Shift: From Distribution to Enablement
Improving affiliate adoption requires a fundamental mindset shift. Success isn’t measured by how many assets you distribute, but by how effectively you enable your affiliates to use them. In other words, the onus for ensuring content adoption starts with your team.
Adopt an Affiliate-First Approach
Start by involving local teams early in the development process. Rather than creating content and then seeking local input for minor adjustments, build collaborative frameworks where regional and local stakeholders help define needs from the beginning. This co-creation model dramatically increases ownership and relevance.
For instance, at bioMérieux, the global Medical Education team found that when affiliates understood the “why” behind content and felt ownership in its development, adoption rates increased significantly and HCP engagement improved.
Think Omnichannel — Internally
You likely already take an omnichannel approach to external communications. Apply the same strategic thinking to your internal communications. Develop multiple communication touchpoints across a variety of internal channels to ensure affiliate teams have the information they need, as well as ready access to the global team to aid in implementation.
This might include:
- Regular “office hours” or forums where affiliates can ask questions about available resources
- Short video walkthroughs demonstrating how to use complex assets
- Direct chat follow-ups with key stakeholders
- Resource showcase sections in internal newsletters
- Digital repositories with robust search and metadata
Close the Feedback Loop
It’s critical that you collect regular feedback from your local teams. But feedback collection is just the first step. You must visibly act on the feedback you get and communicate those actions back to affiliates.
When local teams see their input reflected in revised materials or future planning, they’re more likely to remain engaged in the process and adopt your content.
Strategic Approaches That Drive Adoption
Moving from theory to practice requires implementing concrete strategies that bridge the global-local divide. The following approaches are effective across organizations of various sizes and structures, creating pathways for more collaborative and effective Medical Communications.
Start with Relationship-Building
Global teams can serve as connectors, facilitating knowledge sharing between affiliates facing similar challenges. Create forums where countries can showcase successful adaptations and implementations, fostering a community of practice rather than a top-down distribution model.
Make Modularity a Priority
Design content to be inherently adaptable. Rather than creating fixed presentations, develop modular content systems that affiliates can easily customize while maintaining the strategic narrative. This approach respects local expertise while ensuring consistent messaging.
Provide Implementation Guidance
Every major resource should include clear guidance about:
- The strategic intent and goal of the material
- Target audiences and use cases
- Implementation suggestions and best practices
- Customization parameters (what can and cannot be modified)
- Success metrics and feedback mechanisms
These “roadmaps” transform content into actionable tools, dramatically increasing the likelihood of adoption.
Create Transparency Around Usage
Implement systems that make resource usage visible across the organization. When affiliates can see which materials are being used successfully in similar markets, it creates positive peer influence and uncovers best practices organically.
Measuring Success
Tracking the effectiveness of your affiliate enablement efforts requires looking beyond content production metrics. While it’s easy to measure how many slide decks you’ve created or emails you’ve sent, these vanity metrics reveal little about actual impact.
Develop Meaningful KPIs
Set clear key performance indicators that focus on adoption and usage rather than distribution.
Consider metrics such as:
- Percentage of affiliates actively using each resource
- Number of local adaptations created from global templates
- Frequency of Field Medical team utilization
- Qualitative feedback on resource relevance and usefulness
- Impact on HCP engagement when materials are used
Connect the Dots to Business Outcomes
The ultimate measure of success isn’t adoption alone, but the impact adoption has on business objectives. Work with your analytics team to develop models that connect content usage to meaningful outcomes such as:
- Changes in HCP knowledge or behavior
- Field medical team effectiveness
- Scientific leadership positioning
- Publication impact metrics
By establishing these connections, you transform Medical Communications from a cost center to a strategic driver of business value — a shift that can help secure the budget and leadership support needed to continue improving your affiliate enablement approach.
Use Data to Refine Strategy
Regular review of performance data should directly inform your ongoing content and communication strategy. Consider implementing quarterly reviews that bring together global and affiliate representatives to:
- Identify high-performing content worth expanding or adapting
- Understand why certain resources outperform others
- Recognize regional patterns in content usage and preferences
- Develop targeted strategies for underperforming regions or content types
This data-driven approach creates a virtuous cycle where each content iteration becomes more targeted, relevant, and effective than the last.
Moving Forward Together
The persistent gap between global content creation and local implementation often feels like a burdensome challenge. But it actually represents one of the biggest opportunities available to Medical Affairs teams today. By shifting focus from distribution to enablement, global teams can transform their relationship with affiliates from a transaction into a true partnership.
Success in this area hinges on creating more valuable, usable, and contextual resources that empower affiliates to achieve shared objectives. When you build your strategy around affiliate enablement rather than content production, you’ll not only see greater adoption but also stronger relationships, better feedback loops, and ultimately, more impactful HCP engagement.