South Africa's ‘Coolest Mall’, according to Sunday Times Generation Next, scooped several awards at the annual South African Council of Shopping Centres (SACSC) Footprint Marketing Awards, which took place on 17 October.

| Property 24

Owned in a joint venture by Attacq (80%) and Atterbury (20%), Mall of Africa opened at the end of April 2016 and is South Africa's largest shopping Mall ever built in one phase, with over 130 000sqm of retail space.

The Mall hosts a range of lifestyle and leisure events, including the National Antiques & Decorative Arts Faire and the fifth edition of the Africa Art Collective.

The Footprint Marketing Awards seek to recognise exceptional shopping centre marketing, innovation and creative achievements, together with economic success, within the South African property industry. This year, the Mall of Africa took home awards in the following categories: Integration; Community Relations; Public Relations and Sales Promotions and Events.

"For the second consecutive year, the Mall is recognised by this prestigious institution for our experiential events and promotions. Every year we look to push boundaries and change perceptions of what can be achieved within a physical retail space and this year has been no different", says Michael Clampett, Head of Retail Asset Management at Attacq.

The Mall’s quarterly Africa Art Collective received a spectrum award, in the Sales and Promotion category, which looks at promotional and merchandising activities aimed at directly stimulating measured and documented retail sales that ultimately contribute to a centre's profitability. The Africa Art Collective also took home gold in the same category. The activation not only generated an 8% foot count increase on the upper level during that period, but also increased overall turnover by 9.45%. 

The Mall of Africa also won silver for its Beach event, which took place over the December school holidays, attracting over 12 000 visitors, as well as increasing the Mall's turnover during that period by 7%.

The National Antiques and Decorative Arts (NAADA) Faire was the third winner in this category, receiving a bronze award. The event attracted 1 912 new visitors to the Crystal Court, with 80% of the tenants in that area seeing an increase in turnover. The NAADA Faire also won a bronze award in the integration category, which awards major multi-faceted marketing campaigns that are too complex to fit into a single category. 

Africa's Art Collective received a gold award in the Community Relations category, which awards single or ongoing events, programmes or projects that look to benefit a specific community cause or charitable need, rather than a commercial or shopping centre goal. Hosted in partnership with the Julie Miller Investment Art Institute, the event has provided a platform for over 130 artists and profiled over 500 different artworks.