At The Drum, we hate unnecessary marketing lingo and seek to make the trade and how it works as accessible as possible. As Mark Ritson has now proven, simplifying our language can sometimes be a struggle.
Ritson presenting the case on video call
In his latest column, Mark Ritson said: ‘We know what distinctive marketing looks like. Now let’s agree what to call it.’
He was calling for industry agreement on what to name the building blocks of distinctiveness – be they ‘distinctive brand assets’, ‘brand codes’, ‘fluent devices’, or simply ‘well-branded’.
What followed showed that, after years of debate, there’s still no consensus – and probably never will be.
The discussion spilled over on to LinkedIn, and even if it wasn’t definitive, it proved just how important properly named and applied titles are to us, especially amid marketing’s ongoing identity crisis.
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Every definition sparked another rebuttal, each one revealing how differently strategists, creatives and academics think about the same problem. Some argued for clarity and simplicity; others for precision and theory. The debate endures not because marketers love jargon, but because language is how the industry defends its purpose – inside the boardroom and beyond.
Nick Hirst, global strategy lead at Team OMC for Mars and executive strategy director at adam&eveDDB, set the tone, saying distinctive brand assets “might be the only one that doesn’t make you sound like a knob.”
System1’s Andrew Tindall, advocate of the “fluent device” arrived “ready to scrap in the comments,” only to find things surprisingly civil. Parry Jones, CEO at What’s Possible, wanted marketers to “show our distinctive brand assets some love,” insisting codes and devices sound too lifeless.
Neil Krikul, marketing practitioner turned academic, said most practitioners “wouldn’t know what fluent devices means,” calling for language that reflects reality rather than research papers.
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AJ Rollsy, founder at HealthPoint Research, kept it simple: “I’ve got a preference for DBAs. It says what it does.”
Timothy Barnett, strategy partner at COPE, asked the obvious question: “Isn’t the sum of this just called branding?”
Emily Penny, brand positioning and voice consultant, reminded the group that “designers were creating them long before marketers turned them into science.”
Nick Williamson, marketing director and founder of House of Bricks Strategic Marketing Collective, pushed for alignment: “The only winner can be DBAs,” arguing that consistency matters more than perfection.
Magda Adamska, founder of BrandStruck, whose posting initially inspired Mark’s column, wanted to “kill two terms entirely” – fluent device and distinctive brand asset – because both confuse more than clarify.
Richard Brown, owner of Closer to Brands, wrote, “I’ve always just called them assets,” proposing “assets and associations” as a more natural phrase. Chris Ross, Gartner analyst and chief marketing officer, said the best term would be “whichever makes it easiest to explain brand impact to non-marketers.” Cathal Gillen, marketing effectiveness and brand equity consultant, noted the horse had already bolted – most clients already say DBAs.
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Charlie Cookson, group chief growth officer and managing director, joked about the practical side: “Just tell me which one to use in decks when I’m trying to sell a bear wearing a green jacket.” Martin Silcock, strategic clarity partner, suggested “brand signature” – recognizable cues that deliver recognition, reinforcement and renewal. And David (DT) Thomason, brand planner and advertising strategist, offered perhaps the neatest conclusion: “The word ‘distinctive’ is redundant. It’s not an asset if it’s not distinctive.”
In the end, Ritson’s column did what good marketing debates should: expose the fuzziness in our own vocabulary. Whether we call them assets, codes, or signatures, the goal remains the same – to make brands recognizable, memorable, and consistent. The words we use to do so matter less.
If you have a strong opinion on the topic, you had best tell the man himself here.