Winners of the 2024 V&A Waterfront Neighbourhood Retail Awards Announced!

The winners of the inaugural V&A Waterfront Neighbourhood Retail Awards have been announced. Honourees were named on 25 September 2024 at a gala event MC’d by popular public figure and radio presenter Carl Wastie. Newly-opened Spyced restaurant, in the Silo District of Cape Town’s renowned destination, hosted the evening.

There were 17 awards across 8 categories as decided by a prestigious panel of judges, with two additional People’s Choice Awards voted for by members of the public. Over and above the awards decided by the judging panel and the public, the V&A’s CEO David Green personally selected his own winner for the CEO Award.

Born out of the V&A’s previous tenant awards, the reimagined Neighbourhood Awards acknowledge brands and persons that have achieved best-in-class in retail within today’s competitive and challenging commercial environment.

The individual award-winners within each category are as follows:

Purpose-led Strategy
● Empowerment Impact Award: ONEOFEACH
● Social Impact Award: Den Anker
● Our Better Nature Sustainability Award: Sealand Gear

Brand Design and Innovation
● Top Activation Accolade: HintHunt
● Marketing Alchemy Award: Shimansky
● Digital Innovation Award: Pienaar & Son
● Leading New or Revamped Store Award: Fields
● Inspired Visual Merchandising Award: AAFRICAA

Service Excellence
● Retail Service Excellence Award: Shimansky
● Neighbourfood Service Excellence Award: Kauai
● Small Business Service Excellence Award: Rabinowitz Photography

Staff Talent
● Store Manager of the Year: AAFRICAA
● Retail Service Star Award: AAFRICAA

Retail Excellence
● Retail Excellence Award: Afrika Joe

Neighbourhood Champion Awards
● Global Brand Ambassador of the Year: ONEOFEACH
● Good Neighbour Award: The Fermentary

People’s Choice
● Favourite Eatery: Spur
● Favourite Retail Shop: Woolworths

Special Recognition
● CEO Award: Oranjezicht City Farm Market (OZCF)

Each of these winners walks away with substantial prizes specifically tailored to the respective award. The prizes include a variety of cash components, marketing support packages, trophies, certificates and bragging rights for the next year.

‘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. 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,’ says Alex Kabalin, Retail Executive at the V&A Waterfront.

He continues: ‘We heartily congratulate this year’s winners on their outstanding achievements. 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. Our destination is much-loved by Capetonians, who visit us time-and-again to enjoy and mark special moments, create memories and bring our neighbourhood to life. Their patronage and voting is so important to us!’

This year’s judging process was facilitated by loyalty specialists Truth, which structured the judging input based on global best practice. There were 66 entries across 12 self-nominated awards, evaluated by 34 judges. The number of judges was unusually high for an awards programme of this nature because the V&A wanted to ensure each category was judged by a specialist in that sector.

Due diligence was also done: The V&A’s internal marketing team checked and validated each entry to make sure it met the stipulated entry requirements, such as, for example, the entrant needed to be an active tenant at the time of judging.

Of particular note was the high number of entrants in the Evergreen category. The V&A Waterfront celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, and this significant milestone is made all the more impressive by the high number of its tenants who have remained active on the premises over decades.

However, it was the Our Better Nature Sustainability Award which received the most self-nominated entries overall, bearing testament to the increasing importance of sustainable practices within retail and the emphasis that the V&A itself places on its own sustainability practices and vision.

The People’s Choice Awards proved extremely popular with the public. There were 2 000 public entries received within the 3-week nomination period to decide the top 5 eateries and top 5 stores. Thereafter, 6 400 individual votes were received to decide the winners.

The V&A will award a series of 20 service excellence certificates based on the outcomes of mystery shopper research conducted independently of the nominations and judging process. These certificates will be hand-delivered in store by the relevant V&A property manager and marketing manager.

The V&A Waterfront Neighbourhood Retail Awards will continue in 2025 and plans are already underway to expand the entry categories beyond retail to embrace the destination’s tourism and marine tenants.

For more information visit: https://www.waterfront.co.za/tenant-awards/

Author: Robyn Jones