2016 Year in Review: A journey through #CokeJourney

It's been another incredible year at Coca-Cola, from celebrating our 130th anniversary to launching several new drinks, and meeting global sustainability targets like water replenishment. Here are just a few of our favourite #CokeJourney stories and videos from 2016. 

Our 130th anniversary

We celebrated an important milestone this year – Coca-Cola’s 130th anniversary! Back in 1886, while the Statue of Liberty was still being built, the first ever Coca-Cola was poured. It was created by an Atlanta pharmacist, John Pemberton, and this secret formula has stayed unchanged for 130 years.

Read more about the history of Coca-Cola

The launch of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar

In July we introduced the nation to Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, as part of our campaign to help people to reduce their sugar intake. The £10m campaign was launched by singer-songwriter Rita Ora in central London at our special Taste Lounge. The launch of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar follows years of innovation and recipe revelopment and replaces Coke Zero, which was launched in 2006. It looks and taste even more like Coca-Cola Classic, but without the sugar. 

Take a look at the launch of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar with Rita Ora

ParkLives returns

For the third year running, our ParkLives scheme of fun, free activities was up-and-running across the country. ParkLives is a way to help local communities make the most of their parks and green spaces, meet new people and enjoy new experiences, like Zumbra or donkey grooming!

You can join ParkLives throughout the year, but it's particularly more active in the summer months. The programme first started in 2014 in Birmingham, Newcastle and the London borough of Newham, but we didn't stop there. In 2015, we took ParkLives to Nottingham, Manchester and Glasgow, and this year we expanded to Dundee, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea and a further 35 more locations through our sports charity partner, StreetGames. 

And not only are these schemes encouraging people to try new activities, but the scheme has also helped change lives…

Read about Jay’s story

Absolutely Fabulous, darling!

In May, to celebrate the release of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, we unveiled limited-edition Diet Coke Absolutely Fabulous-themed bottles and cans. Inspired by the glitz and glamour of the much-loved comedy TV show, the designs were decorated with images of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley as the stylish duo, Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone.

Find out more about the Diet Coke Ab Fab bottles

Welcome Honest and Glacéau Smartwater Sparkling

2016 saw the launch of Honest and Glacéau Smartwater Sparkling in Great Britain. Honest is an organic bottled herbal tea that’s certified organic by the Soil Association and comes in three delicious low-calorie flavours: Lemon Flavoured Herbal Tea with Honey, Orange and Mango Flavoured Herbal Tea, and Pomegranate and Blueberry Flavoured Herbal Tea.

Follow Honest on Instagram

Building on the popularity of Glacéau Smartwater, the sparkling version has the same distinct taste as the original drink, but with the addition of tiny bubbles to create a lightly carbonated water. It’s made from vapour-distilled British spring water from Northumberland, and has added electrolytes for a clean, crisp taste. 

Follow Glacéau Smartwater on Twitter and Instagram

1.2m+ women reached with our #5by20 scheme

We proudly announced that 1.2m women across 60 different countries have been reached through our global 5by20 programme since 2010. But we won’t stop there. Our ultimate goal is to help enable the economic empowerment of 5 million female entrepreneurs by 2020. So although we’ve come a long way this year, we’ve still got lots more work to do. Launching 5by20 in Dundee for the first time this year was another step towards this goal. 

Find out more about 5by20

For every drop of water we use, we give one back

To celebrate World Water Week in August, we were thrilled to announce that we surpassed our 2020 target and now replenishe 115% of the water we use. That means that The Coca-Cola Company is the first Fortune 500 Company to replenish more than all of the water it uses globally. Why is water important to us? Watch the video and find out.

Read more about how we’re sourcing water responsibly

First Coca-Cola Collectors Fair in London

September saw Coke collectors from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and even South America come together in London for the first Coca-Cola Collectors Fair in Great Britain. We were also joined by Coca-Cola fans across the globe – many from the UK and Ireland, but some travelled from as far away as Denmark, America and Thailand to take part in the event, and share their love for the brand as we celebrated our 130th anniversary.

Find out more about the Coca-Cola Collectors Fair

Tickled Pink

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, Diet Coke was proud to support Asda’s breast cancer charity, Tickled Pink. So every time you bought one of the 58,000 limited edition 30-can Diet Coke multipacks, 40p was donated to Tickled Pink. This year Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and Coca-Cola Classic were also included in the campaign too, which helped to raise even more funds. It's a great cause, and we think the packaging looks pretty nice too!

Read Asda's blog on why Tickled Pink is so important

Do It Day: Marketing that can change the world

Do It Day from The Drum, a leading media and marketing publication, was all about proving that ‘marketing can change the world’. We took part for the first time and were joined by marketing professionals and creative thinkers from across the industry to devise a behaviour-changing creating campaign to encourage people to litter less and recycle more.

Find out how a talking cup became the star of the show…

Find out more about Do It Day

Setting new trends

We launched some stunning Coca-Cola-inspired fashion collections with different partners around the world, such as Adidas, Tezenis, Fyodor Golan, Charlotte Sparre, PINKO, 0039 ITALY and Skinnydip. Even Oasis, our still juice drink brand, got in on the action and unveiled a self-serving 'Mighty Mac' for festival-goers... 

Browse through our fashion stories for 2016

Snap to Donate with FareShare

We also launched our Snap to Donate campaign in partnership with FareShare this Christmas. FareShare is a UK-wide charity that tackles hunger and food waste by redistributing good food that would otherwise go to waste, to frontline charities and community groups that support vulnerable people. We’re donating 25p to FareShare every time you snap a picture of your promotional Coca-Cola bottle and upload it to www.cocacola.co.uk/donate

The campaign runs until 31 December 2016, so there's still time to take part.

Read FareShare's blog on why the campaign is so important

A Coca-Cola Christmas

For some, Christmas and Coca-Cola are one and the same. As soon as you hear the ‘Holidays Are Coming’ advert, you know it's the start of festive season! This year our campaign focused on how Christmas should be about spending time with friends and family and saying thank you with simple gestures. We also brought back classic favourites, such as the popular Coca-Cola Christmas Truck Tour, and spread a little extra pixie dust with a Twitter emoji of the iconic truck!

Read our brand manager's take on the campaign

Journey 4th anniversary

And finally, as well as being the 130th anniversary of Coca-Cola, it’s also the 4th anniversary of Coca-Cola Journey, which first launched in the U.S. in 2012, before hitting the UK in 2015. So we were thrilled to end the year on a high as our editorial team also won 'Best Digital Publication' in the 2016 Corporate Communications Awards, and 'Most Popular Website' in the 2016 Website of the Year Awards. 

A big thank you to everyone who has read, liked and shared our stories!

Take a look at how we celebrated Journey’s 4th anniversary

Here’s to an incredible 2017! #JourneyOn