AI Can Write Your Marketing. It Can't Tell You If It's Good.

Back in the late 1970s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him: "An impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises."

Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design?

His answer became his ten principles for good design: a set of constraints so considered they've shaped nearly every industry since, whether people realise it or not.

AI is creating a similar moment in marketing. The volume is up. The noise is louder. And it's easier than ever to produce more: more content, more campaigns, more output, without stopping to ask whether any of it is good. Rams showed us that constraint, applied with awareness, leads to better things. The same is true here.

So: is your marketing good marketing?

Here are eight questions, drawn from his principles, worth sitting with as you evolve your strategy.

1. Is your marketing innovative?

Not novel for novelty's sake. Truly innovative marketing finds fresh ways to say true things. It doesn't chase trends; it moves toward clarity. If you're doing what everyone else is doing, ask why, and ask whether it's working.

2. Is your marketing aesthetic?

Good marketing is pleasant to encounter. It doesn't interrupt; it invites. The design, the language, the pacing: all of it shapes how someone feels before they've consciously formed a thought. Cluttered, frantic, or careless marketing erodes trust faster than a bad headline.

3. Does your marketing make your product understandable?

After someone reads your ad, watches your video, or lands on your page, do they know what you do? Specifically? If you need to explain what your marketing meant, it didn't work. Clarity isn't dumbing down. It's respect.

4. Is your marketing unobtrusive?

Marketing that interrupts, demands, or exhausts isn't earning attention. It's taking it. The best marketing creates space for the customer to arrive at their own conclusion. It presents; it doesn't pressure.

5. Is your marketing honest?

This one is harder than it sounds. Not just "we don't lie." Are the implied promises real? Does the product deliver what the marketing suggests? Dishonest marketing might convert once. Honest marketing builds the kind of trust that survives a difficult quarter.

6. Is your marketing long-lasting?

Marketing built on a trend has a shelf life. Marketing built on something true about your customer, their real problem, their real aspiration, stays relevant longer. Before you publish, ask: will this still make sense in two years?

7. Is your marketing thorough down to the last detail?

Rams put it plainly: "Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance." The subject line, the footer, the alt text, the loading speed of the landing page: these aren't afterthoughts. Sloppiness compounds. So does care.

8. Is your marketing as little marketing as possible?

The most underrated question. More isn't more. The right message to the right person at the right moment is worth more than twelve campaigns running in parallel. Ruthlessly edit. Concentrate your effort. Trust that doing less, well, is the stronger move.

Applying these questions won't make your marketing perfect. But it will make it more considered, and that's a better standard to aim for than more.