To say that sustainability is a marketing buzzword is to state the obvious. But, judging from the sudden interest among brands in using the colour green, it appears that many marketers may be considerably more interested in style over substance. And if blue, as a JWT study informs us, is the new green - where does that leave brands clamouring to jump aboard the green bandwagon in the year ahead?
While companies like The Body Shop, StarHub, Heineken and BP have built their brands around the colour green, others are arriving a little late to the party. The past year has seen the likes of Hang Seng Bank, Levi’s, Holiday Inn and Bossini incorporate the colour considerably more prominently in their marketing.
They are not alone, says Desgrippes Gobe Group Asia-Pacific managing director Craig Briggs.
“The trend with brands adopting more use of green in their brand palettes is increasing, just as there is a continuing trend for brands to be perceived as more natural, organic, healthy, friendly and so on,” he says. “We even see industries such as technology adopting the verbal and visual vocabulary of natural products, with ‘organic software’ and other examples like this.”
Colour Association director Margaret Walsh, meanwhile, confirms this by pointing out that her colour of the year is bamboo. Her belief is that strong green, hinted with yellow, represents the changing social desire to be more environmentally clean.
IHG Asia-Pacific sales and marketing SVP Gary Rosen, however, is adamant that Holiday Inn’s decision to rebrand around a stronger usage of green is not because of an inherent environmental message. Rosen is, presumably, wary of being targeted for ‘greenwashing’, and explains that the hotel’s sustainability initiatives are considerably more concrete than that. “While there is no green message associated with the choice of brand colour, Holiday Inn has guidelines for the construction of new hotels which use 30 per cent less materials and require 25 per cent less energy to run,” he says.
The use of the colour green though, along with trees, leaves and grass, continues to abound in commercial imagery. Chinese oil giant Sinopec even advertises, rather curiously, ‘green oil’.
Few, however, believe that consumers will buy the hype. “The continued trend of ecological awareness has caused many companies to rebrand themselves as green, changing their logos and advertisements to suggest an Earth-friendly business design,” says Identity Counsel CD Gayatri Gopaldas. “All of this ‘green loving’ may be turning off some customers to the colour. After all, familiarity breeds contempt.”
And what of blue? With water scarcity becoming a key issue on the green agenda, experts have tipped a colour that is already overwhelmingly popular with marketers to hit the big time this year.
“Among Asians, green generally stands for growth and freshness, while blue stands for confidence and integrity,” says Citigate Su Yeang design director Michael Tan.
Briggs, however, points out that brands risk getting carried away with the appeal of a particular colour, pointing out that codes are loosening quickly. “On a global basis, Evian has broken the color code in mineral waters by adopting pink as its colour - a colour associated with youth.”
Instead, marketers are advised to keep environmental messages out of the colour palette, and apply them to where they belong - by concentrating instead on actions over pictures, listing sustainable practices on their products and using neutral third-party logos for support of environmental issues.