Meet the Global Marketer of the Year 2021 nominees: Pratik Thakar, TCCC

Prior to this, he has held several leadership roles across brands in The Cola-Cola Company including head of Creative Excellence for Asia Pacific, and Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) for ASEAN.

Pratik is a recipient of multiple global awards including the prestigious Cannes Lion, One Show, D&AD, AME, New York Festivals, EFFIE & CLIO. He serves as judge and jury member on many creative innovation, marketing effectiveness and design awards committees.

He is actively involved in various industry and educational bodies. He serves as the Asia Pacific Chairman, CMO Forum at World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), and sits on the global advisory council of New York Festival AME Awards. He is a regular guest lecturer at Singapore Management University (SMU), National University of Singapore (NUS) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

A firm believer and lifelong student of global equality, sustainability and promoting support to disadvantaged communities, Pratikhas furthered his passion through professional educational programs at Harvard Kennedy School and Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He is an active volunteer and advisor to NGOs dedicated to responsible Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Protecting the world's oceans and saving sharks from overfishing and fin trade.

What are the things he's most proud of?

Pratik is a seasoned creative leader at Coca-Cola with a passion for developing interactive consumer experiences. Over the last nine years with the brand, Pratik has focused on collaboration, particularly unexpected collaboration, including interesting partnerships ranging from designers and technologists to esports teams and DJs. Those partnerships have resulted in world class creative executions including collectable packaging, branded merchandise and gamified creative and consumer activations.

Some recent examples of consumer activations with Coca-Cola include the development of Coke Studio leveraging music as a cultural passion point and the NFT loot-box drop in the metaverse, a first for Coca-Cola. Most recently, Pratik led the evolution of the brand philosophy for Coca-Cola, resulting in “REAL MAGIC” – a new global brand platform, including the first expression, “One Coke Away from Each Other” and the very recent “Real Magic at Christmas”. 

Real Magic also includes a new perspective on the iconic Coca-Cola Spencerian script, which appears like an invisible ‘hug’ around the product or creative expression. The collective power behind the creative execution includes a global network of independent talent inclusive of photographers, artists and illustrators.