Westfield Airport West has embarked on a journey to strengthen the cultural behaviour and drive best practices the best way it knows how: recognition and excellent prizes.

The center’s Retailer Rewards Plan is out to give outstanding retailers the boost they deserve. Each month, retailers are be selected as finalists for excelling in the areas of visual merchandising, store display, participation in center campaigns, customer service and store performance. It’s a comprehensive process that leads to rewarding a deserving monthly winner with free coffee for its staff for a month.

At the end of the 12 month program, one monthly winner will be chosen as the overall champion. Not only will that retailer receive a $500 center gift card to be used by the management to treat employees to a team dinner, the center will work with the winning retailer’s regional management to choose one employee to be granted a scholarship to study toward a Diploma of Retail Management.

Retailers can rest assured that the judging process has been well-planned. Each month’s winner will be chosen by a panel of judges made up of members across various divisions within Westfield Airport West including Centre Management, Centre Marketing, Regional Management, Retail Design and independent retail consultants. The three monthly finalists will then undergo an independent Visual Merchandising Audit Assessment which will be carried out by the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) Retail Institute in order to select the overall winner for that month.

At the end of the program, the twelve monthly winners will partake in two formal assessments facilitated by the ARA Retail Institute including a customer experience and service audit within the store.

“We want to encourage excellent customer service and believe it’s important to acknowledge and reward retailers that demonstrate quality retail principles,” said center manager Adam Weinstein. “The Westfield Airport West Retailer Rewards Program is about celebrating the success of our retailers, sharing best practice and inspiring others to follow suit.”

While most Londoners will be showing their Olympic pride over the next few weeks, Westfield is encouraging them to show off a much more local sort of pride: East, or West.

Conveniently, Westfield has shopping centers in both the East and West Ends of London, making this turf war more than a little self-serving (or what would be the point?). Shoppers can show their allegiance to Team East or Team West by signing up through Westfield London or Westfield Stratford City. Once they’re signed up, it’s all about earning points for the team.

Earning points is right in the Olympic spirit—it’s all about sharing your pride. Shoppers can pick them up for tweeting with the hashtags #IWasThere and #East or #West, along with any sort of interesting content. Or they can join in on Facebook with a Tug of War competition that asks daily questions with distinctly East- and West-London themes. For instance, are you a Notting Hill type or a Bridget Jones’s Diary sort? Instagram users can also get in on the fun, tagging their summer photos with the appropriate hashtags.

While this competition will surely put an end to the age old question of east or west, it’s also good for something a little more tangible. Once the points are tallied, the winning team with receive up to 50 £500 gift cards distributed randomly to its members. There are also weekly giveaways for the team members who post the best tweets, photos and other content. It might not be Olympic gold, but it sounds pretty good to us.

For its 25th anniversary, Manor Walks isn’t just looking back. It’s looking to the future. The center has a brand-new state of the art digital youth center called Venue, and Venue is playing a big part in the birthday celebrations.

Shoppers who visit the youth center will find a treat: a multimedia suite with that revels in Manor Walks history. With a virtual gallery and two video diary booths, there will be plenty of opportunity to reflect and share memories of the center. Meanwhile, a digital graffiti wall will let youngsters create their own artistic interpretations.

But it’s not all business. Venue will also feature a Formula 1 Playstation 3 racing competition, an air hockey table, and even a live webcam displaying work from the redevelopment construction work outside.

“This project is a major step forward in community involvement in Cramlington,” said general manager Bruno Coppola. “Despite young people often getting bad press there is so much local young talent in the area and this centre will give these youngsters the opportunity to shine, put their skills into action and something rewarding and interactive to do that fits with their modern technology- led lifestyles. All memories gained will be used to create a virtual archive of information for Cramlington.”

The project is being run by a team of volunteers from Digital Community Youth. They’ll work with tenants, community groups and young people to build a more cohesive town center for everyone.

“As well as all the fun digital activities we are also offering local schools and groups the opportunity to join a youth management team so they can assist with managing the project at weekends and during holidays to give them ownership of the centre and learn entrepreneurial skills,” said project manager Mick Harland.

Pictured: (Left to right) project manager Mick Harland , Manor Walks general manager Bruno Coppola, Cramlington Councillor Barrie Crowther and Cramlington students Alexandra Hall, Charlotte Hindle and Rebecca Winpenny launch new digital youth project – Venue at Manor Walks Shopping Centre Cramlington.

Catalogs and shopping guides are a weakness of mine—pick one up, and next thing you know I’m circling every little thing to add to my shopping list and checking my budget. After all, who can afford to buy everything, right?

One lucky shopper at Brookfield Place won’t have to dig deep to make that dream come true, though. The center’s Spring Shopping Guide is chock-full of delightful things, over $2000 worth of fashion, jewellery and more from Roots, Coles, K. Jamson, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Vivah, Merle Norman, Great Canadian News, Papyrus and Stepss. And the whole haul is up for a winner-take-all competition.

As part of a call-to-action created by the center and its ad agency, the collective, shoppers who pick up the Shopping Guide have been presented with a QR code that will take them straight to an entry form on the center’s website. One entrant will be chosen next month to take home the whole shebang. And if photos weren’t enough of a draw, shoppers could also take in the potential haul in a center court display over the Mother’s Day weekend.

MEGA is a designer toy sold throughout the U.A.E., one of the sort that can be built up, painted, and otherwise customized by creative types. As with most designer toys of this type, they’re also very popular—so popular that The Dubai Mall is looking for its very own MEGA mascot.

There’s no purchase necessary – Foo Dog, the company that makes MEGAs, has made a template available to be customized in print or online. But if an entrant wants to go the extra mile and customize a real MEGA they certainly can. Once they’ve made their perfect Dubai Mall MEGA, they can follow the mall and Foo Dog on Facebook and Twitter, post up their creation and tag it appropriately.

The entries will all be evaluated by a team of judges, with one being chosen as the winner. The winning MEGA will be named the official Dubai Mall MEGA, bestowing the artist with the title of Creator. The winning artist will also earn a place on the Project: MEGA roster, and take part in the associated exhibition.