We’re coming to the end of 2011, and as people reflect on the year passed, businesses look forward to 2012. While your marketing budgets are being allocated, take a minute (or ten) to review Euro RSCG’s predictions for the year to come.

“When a multinational brand gets ahead of a trend and can own it, and ride its wave, the benefits are long-lasting — recognising, of course, that one of the trends in recent years is the speed of change, as well as the fickleness of leading-edge consumers who embrace what’s new one day and move on to another new the next,” says Marian Salzman, CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide, PR, in North America.

Some of Euro RSCG’s predictions for 2012 include:

• entitlements ending, traditions changing. With the world preoccupied with everything from Wall Street to debit card fees, change is in the air (and in the cloud). Because many people are redefining the very notion of ‘value’, a return to traditional thinking is the cause of the year. Look for many to refocus on family, food, and simple pleasures.
• ‘me’ versus ‘we’ in the age of collaboration. With so many of us used to looking out for number one, next year might have you rethinking your math. The era of ‘me’ is giving way to the era of ‘we’ in this age of collaboration and common interest. Collaborative software will be huge in 2012 as will the ability to work anywhere, 24/7/365, will require online connections.
• a greyer shade of grey. Extreme fatigue is setting in, so grey best defines the year to come. We’ve all come to terms with work and life being blurred more than ever, so grey, the color of blur, is in our sights. Tracking on the new ‘greydar’ is going to help decode where we are headed this year. But it’s not just a metaphoric construct: the world really is going grey, with some countries seeing citizens getting older in record numbers.
• power to the people: socialising the mighty and the tiny. With the era of entitlement on its last legs and with social media continuing to connect us, more movements will be hatched worldwide. Common citizens will be more mobilised to speak out against everything from bullying to GMOs. Regardless of what you believe or where you live, people are talking — loudly, clearly, and with great aplomb.
• a keyboard between screenage feelings. Remember the days when “We need to talk” meant talking face to face? Though nothing will replace some good old face time, the almighty keyboard is now the ultimate mediator and communicator, and next year that will be more true than ever. Screenage is a nod to our new instaculture; the role of Skype, internet TV sites, and music-sharing sites such as Spotify all contribute to living a life onscreen and will continue to change the way we interpret ‘place’ in 2012.
• life in a cloud: mobility, portability, and transience. Cloud computing will be the most talked-about trend in tech for 2012. People will share more than ever, playing music and accessing their information from anywhere, providing a seamless digital experience from start to finish. The biggest player in this cloudy business? Mobile, the perfect device because of its extreme portability and ability to access our emails, notes, social networks, and favorite music and shopping sites from one place.
• good consumption in a dire economy. It’s no longer enough for brands to just provide; we want to know how they provide, why they provide, and what they stand for when doing so. Welcome to the new ‘value’, where fears of a double (even triple?) dip and a shallow consumer confidence pressure big business to do good.

For more information on the report, click here