It’s that time of the year where pretty soon people will start thinking about writing reviews of what happened in 2009 and will also start making predictions on trends for 2010.

One of the more interesting trends to emerge as a consequence of the recession and one that will inevitably attract comments from the reviewers has been the return to all things rural, retro and home-made.

An explosion in the number of people growing their own fruit and veg, unprecedented demand for allotments and people making meals from scratch instead of buying a pile of ready meals from the supermarket are just three of the more obvious manifestations of this trend.

But as the first tentative signs emerge that there may be light at the end of the recessionary tunnel, it will be interesting to see if this trend will stay the course or whether as consumers we’ll revert to our old habits and behaviours once we feel a little more affluent and confident (or maybe on reflection that should be effluent and confident?).

One interesting and somewhat amusing consequence of the rise of ruralism, is the number of brands that are leveraging the trend to help sell their products. And within the past few months there appears to have been a surge onto the supermarket shelves of promotions looking to exploit our appetite for the good life.

As always when you get a number of companies looking to exploit a trend, you find the actual execution of their strategies vary from being inspired, brilliant and relevant through to little more than flagrant bandwagoning.

And just as drawing on ruralism and retro is one theme for brand owners, the other seems to be use of humour and warm folksy copy that was once the preserve of brands like Innocent.

The boys and girls at the nation’s favourite smoothie maker have become past masters at communicating what is essentially government information (get your five a day) in an amusing and entertaining way.

In fact the on pack copy is so engaging that it could even manage to persuade a five year old to start drinking brussel sprout smoothies.

So does the combination of ruralism and wry humour work? Well I guess the brand owners will be the ultimate decision maker on that and whether their activity has driven the all important sales and share increases.

As a consumer who also happens to work in a large marketing communications agency, I suspect I am a touch more cynical than a typical punter on the basis that I get to see loads of ideas every day. However I have to confess that I’ve seen quite a few examples of great promotions that harness these trends in a really engaging and entertaining way, so let me share a few that I’ve really liked.

The first up is Herefordshire crisp manufacturer Tyrrells. Tyrrells really shot to fame when it was bold enough to do battle with Tesco in a very public fashion some years ago. However prior to that, it was already well on its way to become a niche rural craft brand with strong distribution of its range of handmade upmarket crisps and snacks. The company carved out a niche with a strong focus on the provenance of ingredients used and the process employed to craft the crisps.

If ever there was a strong contender for a really ethical brand rooted in its rural heritage Tyrrells would be up there, so in my humble opinion it is quite legitimate for them to leap on the rural/retro bandwagon. How they have done that is quite brilliant and totally in keeping with the brand and it also made me laugh out loud in a petrol station.

Basically they are offering consumers the chance to win a tractor exactly like the one they use to harvest their potatoes. Entertainingly, the image of the tractor on the pack shows it in front of a Kensington mansion by way of acknowledgement that their product may be from the country, but their consumers certainly aren’t. And by way of further reassurance ,  if you do win you won’t have to double the size of your garage to accommodate your new transport, because they’re offering an equivalent cash alternative if the tractor just isn’t your thing.

The copy tone is inspired and I have to confess it made me pick up a bag of their crisps out of pure curiosity. Although I have to confess I do hope someone from a central London postcode wins and uses it for the school run because it would give a completely new take on the phrase Chelsea Tractor.

Next  into my shopping basket is a potentially perfect partner to the crisps, a nice glass of real ale.

Dorset brewer Hall and Woodhouse is best known for a range of ales including the Badger brand which you’ll find on shelves of most supermarkets. They appear to be pulling on their rural craft credentials and also seem to have spotted a prize that would genuinely appeal to their consumers, unlike the entertaining, but largely irrelevant tractor offered by Tyrrells.

The good folk at Badger are offering consumers the chance to win a Land Rover Defender which rather amusingly is pictured with a badger leaning out of the passenger seat window.

The promotion is linked to a really neat online game which reinforces the brand’s rural credentials, complete with birdsong playing in the background. This is a really interesting promotion because on paper it links an alcoholic drink to a car brand. However, judging by the lack of complaints to date, it appears that they’ve got away with this because of the brand’s rural credentials and the fact that Land Rover is just such a good brand fit.

As someone who lives in the middle of nowhere, the idea of winning a brand new Land Rover Defender is really quite appealing and I have to confess that a bottle of Badger has become a regular in my shopping basket with their Golden Glory beer being a particular favourite. Despite increased consumption I’ve still not won the Land Rover.

Third up in the Rothnie shopping basket is Dorset Cereals - a bunch of muesli makers who are coincidentally just down the road from Hall and Woodhouse. Instead of going for the rural thing, the guys at Dorset Cereals have tapped our renewed appetite for camping and combined it with  the retro trend thing to give us the chance to win a VW Camper Van.  Again the promotion feels relevant to the brand and the copy tone gives it a nice twist so this looks like another success story and one that’s directly relevant to their consumer base.

It was about the time that I picked up a packet of Dorset Cereals muesli that I started to spot this potential trend, but it was the fourth item that I spotted that made me realise retro ruralism has gone mainstream and the latest brand on the bandwagon is a pretty unlikely bedfellow at face value.

Beer brand Stella Artois, is also tapping into our love of retro rural with a somewhat bizarre consumer offering to plant a tree every time you buy a pack of 18 bottles of beer.

This must be Stella’s way of reducing its carbon footprint, but I can’t quite see the link between the average Stella drinker and concern over the rural landscape. I accept I might be doing the average Stella drinker a gross disservice with my assumptions, but this promotion just jarred with me when I saw it in my local grocers. I was even more surprised that they are supporting the on pack offer with an outdoor poster campaign to promote the fact you can win a hedge in the British countryside.

However, what the Stella promotion does show is just how deeply the trend for retro/ruralism has embedded itself in the national psyche in a very short spell of time. If a brand the size and scale of Stella believes it is worth investing time and money to tap the eco-trend to help it sell more beer then it shows there really is a groundswell for retro/ruralism among the wider population.

They may just of course got it horribly wrong, but somehow I doubt it.

But this trend does beg the obvious question of whatever next?

Dog food manufacturers offering fox hunting lessons in return for buying a multipack, cement makers enticing us to buy their product with the prospect of a weekend’s drystone walling practice?

Who shot my fox?