With less than a few weeks left before we all enter the year of 2012 (as some believe, the last one in our calendar), we are looking back at what innovations captured consumers’ attention over the past 12 months. Some of the new projects and products appeared within the trends, which emerged earlier, and some of them are truly innovative and ambitions and pave the way for something completely unseen and unpredicted by average minds.

Coca-Cola Great Britain (CCGB) is bringing back its popular Designated Driver campaign to reward responsible drivers with free drinks this festive period.  Now in its fourth year, the activity offers consumers a buy-one-get-one free offer on Coca-Cola and Diet Coke and is supported by digital, POS as well as backing from the Department for Transport’s THINK! road-safety initiative.

White can’t replace red when it comes to Coca-Cola. The carbonated drinks giant, which launched a white can (for the very first time in its history) for the winter season as part of the campaign aiming at raising awareness and funds for polar bears and their Arctic Home, is now introducing the traditional red cans, because the ‘snowy’ version got frosty reception, even though the product itself was not changed at all. Responding to consumers’ demand for the iconic red packaging, starting in early December the brand is switching the background of the limited-edition ‘Arctic Home’ cans to the traditional red, preserving the same ‘polar bear’ design.

The Coca-Cola System in Great Britain (‘Coca-Cola’) has unveiled bold plans to recycle all colourless Coke and non-Coke branded PET plastic disposed of at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This pledge forms one part of Coca-Cola’s approach to achieving its most sustainable sponsorship activation to date. 

Polar bears have been Coca-Cola’s for almost a century, and now they really need the brand to help save the endangered animals from extinction. The iconic brand has teamed up with WWF, its longstanding partner in nature focused activities, to launch the new campaign dubbed Arctic Home, encouraging people across the USA to contribute to the polar bear conservation effort during winter season. The brand is making the initial donation of $2 million to WWF, hoping to raise up to $1 million through consumer texting donations. To spread the message across the nation, the brand is changing its visual identity—for the period of the campaign, which is running from November 2011 till March 2012, the iconic red cans will become white with the red ‘Coca-Cola’ inscription and polar bears (a mother bear and her two cubs), and other drinks from the company’s portfolio will get white caps.

Coca-Cola Great Britain is today launching a new PlantBottle packaging. To celebrate the eco-event the company tasked designer Wayne Hemingway (who is also developing a new uniform for McDonalds) to help communicate the environmental message to consumers, creating a limited-edition umbrella, with fabric made entirely from 100% recycled plastic bottles. The umbrellas are exclusively being sold at Harvey Nichols.