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Not just since the Copenhagen Climate Conference, but for recent years "green" has been a big buzzword—as have sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and corporate citizenship. But what does it all mean to brands and brand management?

As brand consultants we are obsessed with "relevant differentiation"—meaning, that a brand should be as relevant to its target audiences and as differentiated from its competitors as possible. And we are right, because relevant differentiation is the key driver for every brand’s success.

So when thinking about green it’s fair to argue that a brand becoming more green is of striking relevance for its different audiences. For too long companies and consumers have not really cared about the long-term implications of their consumption decisions. Thus, acting more sustainably is growing in relevance for all parties, and more and more it also influences people’s buying decisions.

However the second question is much more difficult to answer: Can "green" help companies and brands to differentiate themselves in the market?

Looking back, the concept of brand was initially driven by quality. Brands stood out because they gave and kept a quality promise, differentiating them from non-branded products. This concept drove branding from the beginning of the last century up to the late 1980s. Then we saw a paradigm shift. At this time the concept of quality—or in other words, rational attributes—was replaced by the concept of emotionalizing brands. One of the key drivers was that the average quality of products in a category became so similar that it no longer offered a driver for differentiation. Quality became a hygiene factor—and then, so did emotionalized brands at the beginning of this decade.

So does green offer a new way of differentiation?

Unfortunately, the answer is: no!  

Although it was a clear way to differentiate for early niche products in food and beverages, clothing, electronics, and cars, it more or less turned into a hygiene factor the moment all the big brands picked up on it. But why is that?

The key driver for this is a coincidental paradigm shift in many developed as well as emerging markets and societies: green is no longer perceived to be a "nice to have," but rather a "must-have."

So sorry, dear marketers, being green will not make you stand out, but it will help you to not lose out. You will need to find another way to fight for your stakeholders’ attention.