MUMBAI: Global beverage giant, The Coca-Cola Company, has been chosen as the recipient of the Creative Marketer of the Year Award at Cannes Lions 2013. The award comes as recognition of the company‘s history of promoting creative excellence in its communications and marketing endeavours.

The award, earlier known as the Advertiser of the Year Award, is presented to brands that have distinguished themselves by inspiring innovative marketing of their products across multiple platforms and who embrace and encourage creativity in their brand communications produced by their agencies.

The Coca-Cola Company won its first Cannes Lion way back in 1967 and has won more than 100 Lions for different advertising and communication disciplines since then. It won the Design Grand Prix in 2008 for the US entry Coca-Cola Identity and in 2012 it won the Outdoor Grand Prix for its Coke Hands initiative in China.

Cannes Lions chief executive Phillip Thomas said, "The Coca-Cola Company‘s restless pursuit of creative innovation in the marketing of its brands across multiple platforms in many different territories has been honoured at Cannes for many years. Most noticeable, when looking at its Lion winners, there is the perfect balance between the careful, consistent management of global brands and freedom given to local teams to adapt and innovate for their markets."

Coca-Cola Company executive vice president and chief marketing and commercial officer Joe Tripodi of said, "Creativity has been and always will be at the heart of our brands. It fuels our business - with consumers, customers, fans, agencies and partners all over the world. We are honoured by this recognition and grateful to our agencies and partners who inspire and make us better."

Since the manufacture of the now famous contour bottle in 1916, Coca-Cola has consistently maintained a strong brand identity with a focus on design. The company‘s advertising, always an important and exciting part of its business, came into its own in the 1970s with the brand‘s iconic 1971 Hilltop commercial - where a group of young people from all over the world gathered on a hilltop in Italy to sing "I‘d Like to Buy the World a Coke."