The Judging Process · SACSC Footprint Marketing Awards

Before preparing your entry, please consult this checklist to ensure eligibility and adherence to the basic format requirements.

Eligible Shopping Centre Entrants

The programme is first and foremost a recognition programme for shopping centres and shopping centre companies. Although we welcome the work of advertising agencies, consulting firms and other support companies, all entries must originate from, and be submitted by, a recognised shopping centre and/or shopping centre owner, developer and/or management company.

Dates of Implementation

The majority of your programme must have been implemented between 01 January 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Language and Currency

All entry contents must be written in English or accompanied by an English translation. All references to costs must be made in SA Rands.

Duplications

Segments of an overall marketing campaign may be entered more than once, with a different reference to the category section only, i.e. category areas A - L as outlined previously. The stipulated entry fee will be charged for each entry.

Award Eligibility

The Footprint Shopping Centre Marketing Awards Committee and SACSC officials will make all eligibility rulings. Both reserve the right to reclassify, recategorise or disqualify entries, as well as remove any ineligible items that might be contained in an entry. All decisions are final.

Footprint Publicity

Footprint Shopping Centre Marketing Award winning entries will be featured in Shopping SA published by the SACSC, and on the SACSC website - www.sacsc.co.za. Your entry constitutes permission for SACSC to reproduce, copy, publish and display the entry material in any format it deems appropriate for the purposes of advertising the winning entries. Please evaluate your entry for publication appropriateness with regard to confidential and proprietary information prior to submission.

3rd Party Acknowledgement

Acknowledgment must be given to any 3rd parties involved eg: concept may have been initiated or may be a joint venture with a radio station. This will not penalise the entry, if necessary acknowledgment is given.

All entries must have a centre or company classification. The classes 1 - 4 outlined below identify these. Your classification is determined by the amount of overall retail selling space in your centre, including vacant space. This includes all square metreage contained in official gross leasable area, including department store and other anchor store space, ice-skating rinks, entertainment centres, movie theatres and all peripheral space engaged in retail enterprise (excluding office or hotel space). You must be able to provide official documentation of this space upon request.

Entries must also state GLA of centre and must disclose the marketing budget for the entry and the total marketing budget for the shopping centre (this information will be kept confidential). The marketing budget for the shopping centre must include any marketing specific salaries and retainers and must also include Christmas decor.

Your entry must be placed within one of the following classifications:

Class 1: Up to 15,OOOm2
Class 2: Between 15,OOOm2 and 30,OOOm2
Class 3: Between 30,001m2 and 60,OOOm2
Class 4: Above 60,OOOm2

Each category will have to fulfill the normal entry criteria:

Marketing objectives and strategy
Creativity
Tactics and implementation
Cost-effectiveness
Impact and results
Centre Productivity
Retailer Productivity
Sales Promotions and Events
Public Relations
Advertising

Each category will be given the opportunity to focus on one of the following:

A. Centre Productivity
B. Retailer Productivity
C. Sales Promotion and Events
D. Public Relations
E. Advertising
F. Leasing Support
G. Grand Opening, Expansion and/or Renovations
H. Community relations
I. Alternative Revenue
J. Category Integration
K. Visual Merchandising
L. Digital Marketing

A. Centre Productivity

This category recognises efforts that directly impact on a centre's revenue performance or operational efficiency. Entries must show a direct and quantifiable link between the strategy and how it tangibly benefitted the shopping centre owner's interests. Eligible entries may include such single examples as a sponsorship effort or a cost-saving operations initiative. Alternatively, entries may be more comprehensive, involving multiple disciplines such as management, marketing, leasing and speciality leasing successes, or innovative ways of generating revenue and/or patronage.

PLEASE NOTE: Marketing-related sponsorships or trade barters, sales promotion results, and leasing support efforts, are generally not eligible in this category, unless you can show a very clear link to the bottom line as a direct result of your efforts. As an alternative, consider placing your entry in the Sales Promotion and Events, Visual Merchandising, Advertising, Retailer Productivity or Leasing Support categories.

B. Retailer Productivity

Programmes designed to benefit retailers by improving store productivity, ultimately leading to improved centre performance. The focus of efforts in this category must be the retailers in a shopping centre or group of shopping centres. Entries could include education programmes, newsletters, sales and customer service training, incentive programmes, marketing and operational assistance, or other activities designed to improve retailer performance (These are targeted at retailers, not consumers).

C. Sales Promotion and Events

Promotional and merchandising activities targeting the consumer and aimed at directly stimulating measured and documented retail sales, ultimately contributing to the centre's profitability. Entries should demonstrate a direct link between the effort and its quantified business sales results.

D. Public Relations

A planned public relations programme or endeavour designed to primarily benefit the commercial interests of the shopping centre or company. The objective of the event or programme in this category is to address a particular need of the shopping centre or company, not to respond to a community need. This may include strategic efforts impacting on zoning or regulation issues, crisis management or prevention of a crisis situation, or a comprehensive media relations strategy designed to obtain positive news or media coverage.

PLEASE NOTE: It is recognised that a comprehensive public relations campaign may include advertising costs (defined as traditional forms of media, including newspaper ROP, magazine and all electronic broadcast). For purposes of this category, however, media expenditure should generally represent no more than a third of the total programme expenses.

E. Advertising

Strategic efforts to advertise and promote a shopping centre or company. A campaign may be generic or a component of a sales promotion and merchandising, community service programme, grand opening, etc.

F. Leasing Support

Programmes and activities designed to benefit the leasing effort of a shopping centre or company. Entries may include brochures, campaigns, leasing (centres and convention) activities and temporary or speciality leasing support efforts, or more grass roots level centre programmes designed to attract a specific retailer, or to motivate retailers to lease or renew existing leases.

G. Grand Opening, Expansion and/or Renovations

A complete campaign to introduce a new, expanded and/or renovated shopping centre.

H. Community relations

A single or ongoing event, programme or project with the objectives of benefitting a specific community cause or charitable need, rather than a commercial or shopping centre goal. Examples include charitable efforts, promotion or a community cause or presentation of a themed entertainment event that serves a local interest or lifestyle. Entries in this category must be altruistic, benefiting an outside community or charitable cause.

I. Alternative Revenue

Programmes and initiatives intended to generate revenue that directly enhances the net operating income of a shopping centre or company. This may include sponsorships, alliances, advertising sales, or other supplemental or non-traditional revenue sources. It may include creative or innovative leasing and/or specialty leasing programmes, including targeted tenant retention efforts.

This category may also include unique examples of operational efficiencies or other cost saving measures that resulted in expense reduction and/or increased revenue for the shopping centre owner. Each entry must provide clear documentation of specifically quantified results linked to net operating income enhancement

J. Category Integration

Examples of appropriate Category integration programmes could include (but not limited to):

A joint-centre or major company-wide campaign employing speciality leasing, special events, public relations, sponsorship revenue generation and business to business communications with company shareholders.

An effort to grow market share specific to a target market or customer through remerchandising, business to business, leasing, specialty leasing and consumer marketing strategies.
Theacquisition,redevelopmentandrepositioningofashoppingcentreusingacombinationoffinancing,leasing,specialty leasing, design and both business to business and consumer marketing strategies.
A combination of leasing, operational and marketing strategies designed to accomplish property revenue goals or to enhance centre value for its planned disposition or refinancing.
Unique examples of operational, marketing and specialty leasing efficiencies, envirofriendly or "green" initiatives or other cost saving measures that resulted in expense reduction and/or increased revenue for the shopping centre owner.

K. Visual Merchandising

This category is to recognise how visual merchandising contributes to the success of the shopping centre. Entries may be from speciality retailers, speciality leasing managers, marketing directors and/or general managers. Projects in this category may include merchandising of kiosks, retail merchandising units, temporary in-line space, enhancing the common area space with decor, etc. The execution will be scored based on criteria such as the quality of overall concept and design, merchandising, degree of challenge and innovation, and results and impact.

L. Digital Marketing

This category reflects the changes in the media mix utilised within the industry and is ideal for campaigns or specific activity using electronic forms of communication such as email, web, sms or plasma screens. This could be a promotion, an awareness campaign or on-going centre support. The entry should clearly demonstrate how new media techniques have enabled the shopping centre to effectively engage with the target audience whether this be shoppers or a business audience.

The Footprint Marketing Awards committee will review and assess all entries for eligibility and qualification of a minimum standard for judging. This committee may reclassify or recategorise entries and may remove elements that do not meet the entry requirements. Entries that differ substantially from the entry guidelines will be disqualified without prior notice to the entrants.

An adjudication committee, made up of a combination of shopping centre and general advertising and marketing practitioners, will adjudicate and score all eligible submissions according to official criteria in order to determine award winners. Committee members will not review entries for their own companies, nor will they judge entries where there is a possible conflict of interest.

Judges reserve the right to withhold an award, should the entries not meet the standards required to be eligible for an award.

Marketing Objectives and Strategy

Based on fact - not opinion?
Directly linked to the situation?
Was a clear problem or opportunity identified that the plan could realistically address?
Did strategies appear realistically capable of accomplishing goals?
Were the strategies business based, i.e. owner's interests considered?
Are/were the goals specific, time based?
Can the goals be measured quantitatively? If not, can qualitative goals be measured objectively?

Tactics and Implementations

Were the tactics used appropriate to the strategies?
Was the implementation appropriate and consistent with the objectives, strategy and tactics employed?
Was a high level of competence and professionalism exhibited in the implementation?
Did the entry properly document all the claims made, i.e. was it believable?
Were materials and documentation appropriate for achieving the desired results?

Creativity

Are the strategies original and innovative?
Did solutions maximise the opportunity to succeed?
If the programme was new, did the entry find a new twist?
Were the advertising elements effective, as opposed to simply novel or attractive?

Cost-Effectiveness

Did the amount appear to be a wise use of the centre/company funds?
Did results obtained merit the expense made?
Were creativity and resourcefulness shown in the budget without compromising quality and ability to get results?
Was there clear "bang for the buck"?

Impact and Results

Was strong detail provided in results documentation?
Did results link to original objectives?
Are the results credible?
How did the results impact on the centre?
Were the interests of the owner of the shopping centre well served?
Is this entry worthy of emulation by the rest of the industry?