A glamour-filled gala at the newly-opened Spyced restaurant in the Silo District on Wednesday evening saw the unveiling of the inaugural V&A Waterfront Neighbourhood Retail Tenants Award winners, reports Cape {town} Etc.
There were 17 awards across eight categories as decided by a prestigious panel of judges, with two additional People’s Choice Awards voted for by the general public, which proved extremely popular with 2 000 public entries and over 6 000 individual votes to determine the winners.
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Born out of the V&A’s previous tenant awards, the reimagined Neighbourhood Awards aimed to give recognition to brands and persons that have achieved ‘best-in-class’ in retail within today’s competitive and challenging commercial environment.
‘We are committed to our vision of creating an inspiring waterfront destination in a 350-year-old working harbour. An integral part of bringing it to life and creating value for our visitors from Cape Town, South Africa and across the world are the many relationships we foster with our much-valued tenants,’ said V&A Waterfront‘s retail executive Alex Kabalin.
‘We’re all part of an ecosystem which operates at a pioneering level of excellence. Our awards programme aims to recognise the stand-out contributions from the many retailers, store owners and brands that help make the V&A what it is today.’
In addition to trophies, certificates and bragging rights, each of the winners walked away with substantial prizes specifically tailored to the respective award, including cash components and marketing support packages.
Meet the individual award winners within each category:
Purpose-led Strategy
- ONEOFEACH: Empowerment Impact Award
- Den Anker: Social Impact Award
- Sealand Gear: Our Better Nature Sustainability Award
Brand Design and Innovation
- HintHunt: Top Activation Accolade
- Shimansky: Marketing Alchemy Award
- Pienaar & Son: Digital Innovation Award
- Fields: Leading New or Revamped Store Award
- AAFRICAA: Inspired Visual Merchandising Award
Service Excellence
- Shimansky: Retail Service Excellence Award
- Kauai: Neighbourfood Service Excellence Award
- Rabinowitz Photography: Small Business Service Excellence Award
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Staff Talent
- AAFRICAA: Store Manager of the Year
- AAFRICAA: Retail Service Star Award
Retail Excellence
- Afrika Joe: Retail Excellence Award
Neighbourhood Champion Awards
- ONEOFEACH: Global Brand Ambassador of the Year
- The Fermentary: Good Neighbour Award
People’s Choice
- Spur: Favourite Eatery
- Woolworths: Favourite Retail Shop
Special Recognition
- Oranjezicht City Farm Market (OZCF): CEO Award
‘We heartily congratulate this year’s winners on their outstanding achievements,’ continued Kabalin. ‘We’d like to thank all our many excellent tenants who entered, as well as the judges who evaluated their entries. A special thank you must also go to all of you – our visitors – who voted in the People’s Choice Awards.’
This year’s competition process saw 66 entries across 12 self-nominated awards coming in to be evaluated by a whopping 34 judges to ensure each category was judged by a specialist in that sector. The judging process was facilitated by loyalty specialists Truth, which structured the judging input based on global best practices.
In another first for this year’s awards, V&A Waterfront CEO David Green personally selected the recipient of the first-ever CEO Award, recognising OZCFM for being an ambassador of Cape Town, embodying the Waterfront’s core values of excellence in commercial practices, the spirit of ubuntu, and its sense of neighbourliness.
According to the V&A, we can expect the Neighbourhood Retail Awards to continue in 2025, with plans underway to expand the entry categories beyond retail to embrace the Waterfront’s tourism and marine tenants.
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Picture: V&A Waterfront
