The year 2011 is wrapped up. All wrapped up on a cold December morning. Ready to be buried. It's time to take stock of what went into it in marketing terms. What, then, were the trends that defined the calendar year 2011 in marketing and brand terms?

Here goes.

Watch out! Activism is up: This is a trend that is going to define marketing and branding in the years to come. The Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement in India, and indeed across the Indian diaspora, has set a trend all in itself for the marketer to watch, and watch out for. Activism is in. At this moment, the activism is all about an anti-corruption movement aimed at the politician and bureaucrat class at large.

Watch it spread to every terrain there is. Activism and consumer watch movements will now spread to corporate governance and surveillance in terms of corporate corruption, and corporate greed.

Watch it spread even wider in coming years, then. Activism is a bug. A positive bug for sure. Watch it spread to the terrain of wealth. Watch it become a movement that questions big wealth in the hands of a few versus none in others. It will question the possession of big cars versus small. Activism in this space will question every bit of flaunting. Activism in this space will indulge in audits of the rich and what they wear, what they eat, what they use as accessories and what they spend on a single meal, even.

In the immediate year ahead, expect consumer activism movements to gain traction. The marketer better prepare for this with transparent mechanisms. You might as well expect an RTI kind of legislation in the space of the brands and businesses you run and manage. Ouch!

E-commerce is the silent market-maker: If in the year 2010, multi-level marketing firms such as Amway were the silent market-makers which gained big volumes and big acceptance in Indian homes, in the year 2011, it was the e-commerce outfit on the prowl.

Venture capital flowed into the field like vodka and whisky on New Year's Eve. Ideators and promoters of the e-commerce venture therefore went berserk burning money on the track to stardom. Big successes were noted with outfits in B2C commerce such as Flipkart, Home Shop 18, Yebhi, and their cousins in C2C commerce such as eBay try every trick in the marketing book to reach out to distant markets urban, rurban and rural alike.

Cash-on-delivery (COD) worked miracles for the category. The Indian who largely distrusts credit card payments found comfort in paying at the doorstep for orders placed on the Internet. It's a different matter that as much as 16 per cent of all such orders are rejected at the doorstep and the only entity that makes money on this entire transaction is the courier agency which makes money twice over.

At the end of all this e-commerce evangelism at play, one big trend has emerged. India is today a level playing field for all marketers. If you tie up with the right kind of e-commerce outfit, you will be able to reach distant markets, which you have ignored thus far. Distribution in the rural markets is not such a big issue today for relatively higher value products such as microwave ovens, mobile phones and even cosmetics. Just tie up with an e-commerce portal, and sit back and enjoy.

This space saw the proliferation of group-buying sites as well. Localised and globalised outfits even. Snapdeal, Taggle, SoSasta and 94 others to be precise. Many folded up as well. Quick exits, as the category has inherent inconsistencies, which are yet to be attended to.

Telecom confused: 2G to where ji ? If there is one consumer category that looked totally confused this year, it was telecom. Most of the biggies were still battling boardroom, parliamentary-committee room and courtroom woes in the wake of the 2G spectrum allocation issues.

3G came in, but everything seemed tepid. Telecom service providers continued their advertising binges and splurged on creatives that kept the interest alive. Handset makers found themselves in a tizzy with market shares getting redefined drastically this year. The biggies were no longer the biggies. The smaller ones were struggling to make their bottom lines look good, even as their top lines boomed. The big issue at hand: Sustainability. Telecom Darwinism is round the corner. The big ones will win and the small ones will struggle to survive.

Mobile number portability came in, the DND register got activated, smart-phones were a rage, VAS gained traction, green-tech saw investments and rural mobility came into sharper focus. And despite it all, the category remained lackadaisical and trends in the category are a bit amorphous at the moment.

Brands nudge health: Brands continued to nudge the health bandwagon this year as well. Green tea became the biggest hit in political circles all over the country. Even government offices started offering green tea to visitors. And if it was a special visitor, the ‘Babu' offered honey with it as well, drawn out from the upper drawer of his desk. Wow!

Big opportunities were spotted by the product categories of tea, honey, oats and the services category of Yoga (of every avatar), meditation, gymnasiums and more. Wait for lots more of this in the years to come.

A de-branded India: India got de-branded badly this year. Despite the robust numbers on the GDP growth rates side of dynamics (which itself got scaled down dramatically) and despite the large consumer market we are, issues such as corruption catapulted the nation into the active mindset of a world audience. Noises of shifting investments to other parts of the world did their bit as well. Add to it a one-step-forward, one-step-backward attitude of the government at large, as witnessed on the FDI-in-retail issue, and India is a bit on the backfoot.

But, as I keep saying, India is an idea whose time has come. Nothing can stop it. So watch out as every sector booms despite all this de-branding.

In the face: Even as India as a country was a bit on the backfoot, Indians went places in the world scenario. Nineteen newly anointed CEOs of large-format global companies were Indians. Shah Rukh Khan roped in singer Akon for Chamak Challo , Lady Gaga was in India for the F1 show, Paris Hilton launched her bags in India, Tom Cruise came cruising for the Mission Impossible launch, Snoop Dogg was spotted with Akshay Kumar and Sunny Leone was a porn star Indians loved to watch on Bigg Boss . Bollywood went places.

India went viral as well as Kolaveri Di hit over 20 million YouTube downloads and Jalebi Bai replaced Shiela and Munni of 2010 with a raunchier visual than even Vidya Balan of The Dirty Picture fame.

And what do I see to be the one big trend for 2012?

I would wager a bet on the ‘Slow Down India' movement. Today, the working Indian is a bit too keyed up. There is just too much pressure in our living and working environment. Schools kids are pressurised to perform, college students are on a suicide spree, working adults are working their butts off.

The one big trend I would push for would be a campaign to slow down India. This trend will then have ‘slow food' outlets emerge in our metros where you eat slowly, and enjoy the value of every morsel. Companies can incorporate the ‘Slow Down India' movement in their brand themes as well. If Tata Tea's campaign of yore was all about Jaago India Jaago , with a more awake India today, Vodafone's 2012 campaign could be a ‘Slow Down India' campaign.

The slow down movement is essential for India as we emerge the world's capital for diabetes and hypertension, and are strong contenders to be cholesterol capital as well. As lifestyle diseases of every kind hit us and as Corporate India experiences it all first hand amidst its own employees, this is an idea whose time has come!

Royalties welcome for this idea.

A Happy New Marketing year 2012 then! Slow down, guys!

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