Roll your own DICE: How values will save you from the AI swamp
Opinion
This is why human-led content needs a compass more than ever: values can’t be faked. You can’t prompt your way to perspective.
Most marketing content today is forgettable. AI just makes it faster and dumber.
When I became editor of The Media Leader, one of the first things I did wasn’t hire staff or chase traffic. It was values. We published a set of editorial principles shaped by peers across media and advertising. Four words: disruption, inclusion, courage, excellence (DICE).
Of course it was virtue-signalling. That was the point. In an industry drowning in mediocre content, signalling virtue was a way to draw a big, fat line in the sand and promise to do better.
That choice feels even more urgent now. If the last 15 years were defined by clickbait and churnalism, the next five risk being shaped by something worse: machine-generated mediocrity disguised as insight.
What do we really mean by ‘values’?
Regular Media Leader contributor Simon Akers made a great point recently: freelancers give great advice to brands but often fail to brand themselves.
Tracy De Groose, the ex-Dentsu and Newsworks chief now leading William Reed, told me on a panel at the recent PPA Festival that she doesn’t get why B2B marketing ignores lessons from B2C.
She’s right. B2B brands need values too. Business buyers are, last time I checked, also human beings. And humans respond to feelings, imagery and evocative memories. Values communicate that.
But values only matter when tied to outcomes: trust, loyalty, memorability, pricing power. That’s what turns them from fluff into strategy.
If you want to be seen as premium or radical, define it. Live it.
The cost of not standing for something
The barriers to entry in media are practically gone. Without principles, you’re forgettable. Values are your moat.
Take Byline Times, a six-year-old British paper edited by a former colleague. You might not agree with it, but it’s one of the few media success stories in recent years and is built on its refusal to take ads. I don’t believe ads block fearless journalism (more often they fund it), but Byline’s stance gives it a clear identity.
Compare that to the clown car of content aggregators rewriting press releases. You can’t name them. You wouldn’t miss them. They stand for nothing.
When we launched DICE, it wasn’t branding; it was a filter. A decision-making tool. It helped us move fast and earn trust.
Values aren’t a nice-to-have. They’re your edge.
Meaning is what comes first
The brief is clear: faster, better, cheaper. AI fits perfectly — scale without headcount.
Some content doesn’t need values: a help document, a product page. But if you want thought leadership, editorial integrity or a brand people trust, values matter more.
They’re a capital investment. They build loyalty. Reduce churn. Drive pricing power. You wouldn’t let clients treat marketing like a cost; don’t treat your own brand that way either.
Trusted brands outperform. Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer shows 61% of people rank trust as a top buying factor.
What good writing still requires
But good writing isn’t about perfect phrasing. It’s structure, logic, voice.
While AI can help build the bones and graft the skin, it can’t think for you.
New Yorker veteran John McPhee spends months shaping structure before drafting. He and his editor polish every line. Of course, McPhee is 89 and from another era.
But too many of us now try to be Gary Vee — flooding feeds with motivational noise and content for algorithms. His “jab jab jab, right hook” mantra has become an excuse for quantity over quality.
Most content reacts. It doesn’t reflect. We’ve got the world’s knowledge in our pockets, but we reach for what’s trending. Because the real reason people can tell you’re using AI to write your copy? You’re not really saying anything.
It’s “thought leadership” that neither thinks nor leads.
AI isn’t the villain — our incentives are
HubSpot shows content volume is up and engagement is down. Fatigue is real.
The problem isn’t AI. It’s the system that rewards speed over substance.
Use it to summarise, draft, ideate. But AI can’t give you a worldview. It can’t define your editorial integrity. That’s your job.
What’s coming isn’t just more content. It’s more thoughtless content. More carousel posts. More empty insights. You can’t prompt your way to perspective.
Even solo creators can outshine giants if their values are sharp and consistent. A small brand with conviction beats a big brand with nothing to say.
If you don’t define your values now, you won’t just get drowned out. You’ll be replaced.
What will you give up to succeed?
If you’ve read this far and still don’t know your values, that’s the issue.
Most companies don’t have a strategy because they’re not taught to think strategically. They’re taught to hit goals.
That’s your challenge. Values help you think long term. Because strategy bridges your goals to your actions.
Start by naming what you defend. Then what you refuse. The overlap is your edge.
As strategy consultant Richard Rumelt says: “A good strategy defines a critical challenge and builds a bridge between that challenge and action. A blue-sky objective is a restatement of desire, skipping over the fact that no-one knows how to get there.”
Yikes. It turns out that most companies do have values, but they just don’t live them. That’s worse than having none.
So if you want your content to move people, start by defining what you believe. Then build from there.
Values aren’t what you write on your website. They’re what you’d lose money over.
• Define what your brand defends
• Work out what it refuses
• Build systems that prove it
Conviction is what cuts through
DICE may evolve. Values aren’t static. But if you don’t define them, someone else (or something else) will.
Your advantage isn’t speed. It’s clarity. The courage to stand for something. The discipline to prove it. The conviction to hold the line.
AI can mimic voice. It can’t mimic belief.
And belief is what makes your work worth paying for.
Omar Oakes was founding editor of The Media Leader and continues to write a column as a freelance journalist and communications consultant for advertising and media companies. He has reported on advertising and media for 10 years and was previously media and tech editor of Campaign. His column on The Media Leader was nominated for the BSME’s B2B Column of the Year in 2024.