Did Mark Ritson finally manage to codify distinctive marketing? No, but it is a start

"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. 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."

"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."

Mark Ritson called for industry agreement on names for the building blocks of brand distinctiveness, offering options such as 'distinctive brand assets', 'brand codes', 'fluent devices' and 'well-branded'. Responses revealed persistent disagreement and an absence of consensus across practitioners, strategists, creatives and academics. Contributors argued for conflicting priorities: some advocated clarity and simplicity, others demanded theoretical precision. The debate occurred publicly on LinkedIn and exposed how language choices function as tools to defend marketing's purpose within boardrooms. Practitioners generally favored familiar, descriptive terms while academics and theorists leaned toward precise, research-driven language.

Read at The Drum