We’ve been focused on the MAXIs for the past few weeks, but time doesn’t stop for one country’s marketing awards. The South Africa Council of Shopping Centres (SACSC) recently held the launch of its premiere awards program, the Spectrum Awards. The Spectrum awards honor achievements in innovation, creativity, vision and excellence across all disciplines and all sectors within the South African retail industry.

The Spectrum Awards bring together the top regional winners of SACSC awards programs like the Footprint Marketing Awards and the Retail Design and Development Awards.

This year’s winners were each judged the best in their category. They included Mooirivier Mall, with the Retail Design and Development Award; Brightwater Commons ‘Going Green’ campaign (which we’ve covered parts of in the past) for the Shopping Centre Marketing Excellence Award; Cattle Baron for the National Retailer of the Year Award; and Life Landscapes for National Service Provider of the Year Award.

Congratulations to everyone who took home a Spectrum Award!

Big names keep popping up in conjunction with Haiti earthquake relief. Lovely to see that helping those desperately in need wasn’t a passing fad.

Last week, a Vivienne Westwood pop-up shop made its entrance at Westfield London (whose site seems to be down at the time of publishing). The shop sells t-shirts designed for Fashion for Relief, an organization that brings the power of the fashion community to causes that need it. The t-shirts retail for £40, and funds raised from their sales go to The White Ribbon Alliance. The shirt designs include statistics about Haiti earthquake relief, and the pregnant and lactating women that need the assistance of The White Ribbon Alliance.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell unveiled the t-shirts at her Fashion for Relief show earlier in February, and she helped out with sales by signing 10 of the shirts to be sold at the pop-up shop, and showing up at the shop last weekend to promote the cause. Hopefully a recent controversy involving the notoriously mercurial star and a New York cabbie won’t hurt sales for this great cause.

Bromley Youth Service recently put out a call to challenge local teens: help us climb Mt. Everest (or perhaps the next best thing).

The call to action brought hundreds of visitors to Glades Shopping Centre, where they bravely scaled the mountain in relay. Sort of. They scaled a climbing wall, true, but they made the distance: 7200 m, the distance required to climb to Everest’s summit and back to its base. And while many have perished attempting the real Everest, the Glades event was a a friendly, fun challenge for all.

Unsupervised teens are a challenge for a lot of malls, but it’s great to see a mall invite them in for a productive, fun event. Working with your teen population can bring great rewards.

‘Tis the season to get married, and brides-to-be have a lot of options when it comes to shopping for their big day. Santana Row hopes to capture this ever-changing market with its bridal guide and contest, on now.

The Santana Row bridal guide highlights retailers at the center that can make a woman’s special day even better. From bridal-wear to venues, with nearly everything in between, the shopping center has something to offer. Not all the choices are obvious, but rather they provide a good mix of the traditional and the eclectic, with something to offer everyone.

And the cherry on top is their bridal contest, which is the “It’s Every Little Girl’s Dream” bridal shower up for grabs. The winner will be treating herself and her three nearest and dearest to an overnight event, with champagne, brunch, 50-minute massages, manicures and pedicures, and more. To help out with the wedding prep, the winner will also receive gift cards to Priscilla of Boston, Cara’s Cupcakes and Club One, teeth whitening, a tux for the groom, photos and jewelery.

It’s not quite a “Dream Wedding” package, but for the bride who already knows what she wants, this might just be the perfect fit.

While many of you are just coming back from Fusion, those of us following along at home missed out on a cool bit of technology. Working with Mobile Fringe, the ICSC released a free iPhone application just for the event.

The iPhone app gives attendees a whole host of features at their fingertips. It contains a full agenda with detailed information about each session. Every exhibitor is listed, and a map pinpoints each exhibitor’s booth on demand. Attendees can also sign in to talk about Fusion on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and they can view a full list of attendees.

Just in case, there’s also a full program PDF, GPS directions to the hotel, and contact links for the conference, the ICSC and Mobile Fringe. It’s just about everything a conference attendee could wish for, all in a neat little digital package. We bet we’ll see more apps like this in the future.