2012: Be the first of your friends to like this

Two ideas stand out in Joseph Campbell's seminal The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Crossing the Return Threshold, one of the 17 steps in the hero's journey; and the ‘Shapeshifter', a character archetype that is not quite a villain, yet causes confusion and setbacks.

Think of the washerman Mara and the ‘ agnipariksha ' episode in the Ramayana and you will get the idea. Mara, the Shapeshifter, casts doubts and Sita has to go through a test by fire – before the Hero can get on with the Coronation. Just remember that Ravana was dead by then. But the story does not end there.

Campbell's thesis was that the hero's journey and the different archetypes are universal and hold good, across various folklore and myths, amongst all cultures.

Life plays out in the same way in the real world. I will even argue that such a setback is a necessary marker. That is, we can expect a successful and sustainable closure to events only after a test by fire is triggered by a shapeshifter.

Viewed from that perspective, the kerfuffle and the withdrawal of the notification of FDI in multi-brand retail are both good news. I do expect that the Government will stop shifting shape on this and clear the way for the entry of multi-brand retail that sell to consumers.

I expect, however, that FDI in retail will become Not a Big Deal very fast after it comes into force. (I am trying to avoid clichés like ‘damp squib' which may be more apt.) Organised multi-brand grocery retail has some history in Chennai and Bangalore. We know how exactly consumer behaviour evolves over time. Above all we know from mall shopping behaviours that window shopping to enjoy the air-conditioning and the food court is not exactly a weapon of mass destruction of petty shop keepers.

Whether or not they have a new big box retail behemoth to get tired walking in, affluent consumers are happy shopping from a small screen – on the TV, and on the PC. It's also clear that online retailing and tele- retailing (home shopping) have crossed the threshold of their respective inflexion points.

Almost everyone seems to have a Flipkart account. Amazon's entry is imminent. And stores such as Homeshop 18 or STAR CJ are busy selling everything from shoes and ships to sealing wax, for marriages and kids. And are positively frenetic when it comes to seeking Likes on Facebook and RTs on Twitter.

Historically catalogues were not just sales channels, but helped to signal ‘what the people in the large cities were up to'. This is important for fashion and other such categories that say something about you. This function has now shifted to social media. And social media are already becoming pervasive across social and population classes, driven by rising mobile penetration.

Even as I write this, they face their own new test by fire: Not just on content that we saw a few days ago; but on access too, with some spanner in the works on the 3G service – both are potential propellants to heightened interest and adoption.

West Bengal, and the East, more generally, has seen not just one but at least three tests by fire this year: the Kolkata hospital fire, three train fires on East-bound trains. Add the Sikkim earthquake, the Hooch tragedy, the helicopter crash that took the life of the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh … it's a long list.

These, hopefully, mark an inflexion point after all the investments going into that threshold. The government has a central ministry for the North-Eastern region. There is talk of a large Central University in Assam, similar to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (besides an IIT at Guwahati and an IIM at Shillong already present). Mobile operators too have spent large amounts now, for at least four years.

Plus, the migrants transfer monies back, and increasingly the migrants from the East and North-East are in Chennai, and not in Mumbai or Delhi. Improvements in telecom add velocity to the business and economics. Social media flatten social hierarchies. Pretty much the similar arguments hold for Kashmir too.

So the tipping point is nigh for a take-off in the East and North-East.

When you add up all these trends – social media, Web retailing, and new geographies – you get Airbnb. Think of a ‘Hotel on a sachet pack' and you get Airbnb. (www.airbnb.com ) As the site says, you can ‘Rent from real people in 19,732 cities in 192 countries'. And you can ‘see where friends have stayed in India and read their reviews'.

Social media are particularly useful for experience goods such as hotels and restaurants. Services are performances, created every instant. So they vary a lot, willy-nilly. Recommendations matter in these, even if there is prior experience. Social media provide a continuous news bulletin on what to expect, that too from someone whose needs and expectations likely mirror yours closely.

When I last checked there were nearly 800 listings for India, two from Guwahati. So a critical mass of Airbnb listing by, say, Guwahati households starts to attract new travellers who otherwise would have probably gone to the usual suspects. And in turn puts monies straight into the consumers' wallets.

I expect Airbnb to be, ahem, the sleeper hit of 2012.

B. Narayanaswamy is a Consultant at Ipsos Research, based in New Delhi.

COMMENT NOW