Ask three colleagues to review the same AI generated post and you get three kinds of feedback: one finds the tone too casual, one wants a different image, one says it is fine. All three can be right. That is the problem. Without an agreement on what you are looking at, reviewing is taste, and taste moves with whoever happens to be looking that day.
Dilution happens slowly
A brand rarely collapses because of a post that is obviously wrong. You catch those. It goes wrong with the pieces that are just about acceptable. A headline slightly louder than your usual but it reads well. An image not quite in palette but it performs. A word you would not normally use that happens to be funny this once.
Every concession is defensible on its own. Fifty concessions later, the average expression of your brand has moved without anyone having made a decision. This happens with handmade work too, just more slowly. At higher volume it simply happens faster, which is why you need a firmer way of looking.
Separate what is fixed from what needs judgement
The biggest gain comes from splitting review into two kinds of checks. The first kind is objective. There is a right and a wrong answer, and it should never reach a person:
- Colour values, typefaces, logo usage and clear space around the logo
- Banned words, required spellings, how your own product names are written
- Aspect ratios and safe margins per channel
- Mandatory statements, disclaimers and terms
- For audio and video: which voice, what pace, which music is allowed
All of this can be fixed up front. When your system runs on your brand rules and your approved reference material, output that breaks these never reaches you. That saves time, and it also stops your attention being spent pointing at the wrong blue when you should have been thinking about the idea.
What a person should actually judge
What remains are the questions no rule can cover. Keep the list short, because a long one goes unused. Four questions is enough:
- Is it true? Are there claims we cannot back up, or numbers nobody has checked?
- Do we sound like this? Would someone who knows us expect this from us, with the logo removed?
- Does it add anything? Is there something in here only we could say, or could any company have posted it?
- Could it hurt? Is there a reading where this lands badly, given what is going on right now?
Give one person the final say per piece. Reviewing by committee produces compromises, and compromises are exactly the average, toothless version you were trying to avoid. A second pair of eyes is welcome, but the decision sits with one person.
Be strict about the verdict too. Allow yes and no, and treat "fine, I guess" as a no. That half approval is where dilution enters, because a piece nobody actually wanted still ends up representing you and still ends up in the pile of examples you learn from.
Make your judgement pay off
Feedback that stays in a chat thread is wasted work. What you reject and why is the most valuable material you have, because it describes your brand more sharply than your brand book does. Keep rejected examples with the reason attached, and keep approved ones too. A system that learns from what you approve gets better tuned to your brand with every round. Without that loop you start from scratch each time.
Once a quarter, look at the whole rather than the parts. Put your last thirty published pieces on one screen together. Individual pieces can all pass review while the body of work has still drifted. You only see that when you zoom out.
Start small: write down this week the five things that are objectively wrong at your company, no matter who is looking. That list is the foundation of your whole review process, and it usually takes half an hour to make.
Further reading
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