Marketing·42·Added 2026-09-02

Hero asset

A single, highly polished piece of promotional content designed to anchor a campaign, destined to be carved up into short, ignored social media clips.

What they actually mean

We spent eighty percent of the budget on a two-minute video that will be watched in full by exactly four people.

Heard in the wild

"Once the hero asset is signed off, we can begin the atomisation process."

More from Marketing

Dark social

The untraceable sharing of content via private channels, usually consisting of employees messaging each other to ask if the company's new campaign is as embarrassing as they think it is.

Our latest promotional video is getting a lot of traction on dark social, though mostly via encrypted WhatsApp chats.

Translation

People are mocking our brand in private group chats where our tracking pixels cannot find them.

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To greenwash

The delicate art of redesigning a corporate logo with a soft leaf motif to divert attention from the fact that the company’s main export is non-recyclable plastic.

"If we sponsor a local beach clean-up with a catchy hashtag, we can successfully greenwash our Q4 distribution metrics."

Translation

"We bought a handful of carbon offsets from an unmonitored woodland in Devon to ease our collective guilt."

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To leverage

A highly versatile verb used to avoid saying the word 'use', thereby making a mundane administrative task sound like physics.

"We need to leverage our existing brand assets to drive deeper organic engagement."

Translation

We are going to send another newsletter.

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