Want An Eco Trademark? Stand in Line

Another reason for green fatigue?  It seems that the number of trademarks taken out with the words GREEN, ECO and ORGANIC all more than doubled in 2007.  Along with causing consumer fatigue, the terms are bound to lose all their value to marketers.

Posted April 27th, 2008
By MC Milker, Ecopreneurist

According to the report, Trends in Trademarks, applications for patents on trademarks, logos and taglines reached an all time high in 2007. And chief among the requests…those related to green business.

New filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2007 topped 300,00 beating the previous record of 289000 in 2000, driven in part by new marks for eco-friendly products. The word GREEN was the most popular vehicle for communicating environmental friendliness. Applications more than doubled in 2007, increasing from 1100 to over 2400.

GREEN and CLEAN had a particular appeal because it’s easier to coin a short brand name or concise tagline with a one-syllable word than a long word. The two-syllable prefix ECO was also hot in 2007, more than doubling in popularity to nearly 900 new applications.

 

Beyond the obvious green and eco-terminology there was increased interest in trademarks applications for “organic.”

The green trend was accompanied by a big jump in marks that contained the word ORGANIC, rising 57% from 450 to 700. Interest in organic products registered across the board. Only about 1/3 of the applications containing the word ORGANIC covered food products, and less than 10% covered beverages.

In fact, it was the third year in a row when GREEN branding far outpaced the overall increase in applications

 

 All of this activity, from companies large and small means it will become more difficult to position a brand as “environmentally friendly.” We’re moving into the next stage where differentiating AMONG green products is going to be the prime concern of consumers.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to take a look at your product or service and focus on your positioning against green competitors…because there are apparently going to be a lot of them.

Photo Courtesy:  JMV at Flkr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmv/ under Creative Commons License