The Avenue Wins Retail Marketing Award

The Avenue Shopping Centre in Newton Mearns in partnership with Mearns Primary School has been awarded a prestigious Revo Purple Apple Marketing Award: the only awards which recognise and reward effective retail destination marketing within the UK retail property sector.

The award win comes eighteen months after the initiative first launched in November 2017, with retailers including Asda, M&S, Waterstones, Specsavers and Centre Management all committed to giving 900+ local children aged 4-11 the opportunity to learn from retailers at the centre. The programme now in its second year welcomes Clydesdale Bank’s commitment also.

Commenting on the award win Michelle McCabe, Centre Manager at The Avenue said: “We’re absolutely delighted with this recognition following the investment and commitment from Centre Management, Mearns Primary School and retailers here at The Avenue, ensuring we provide East Renfrewshire’s future workforce with invaluable work experiences before they leave primary school. We look forward to continuing with this award-winning rolling programme for years to come.”

One of the Purple Apple judges commented: “A brilliant and unique idea providing children with access to experience real work life, understand different jobs and opportunities that will be available to them in the future. I highly commend this project. It is fantastic! Great showcases for the children to experience as well as including the centre management team and how to run a centre. Clearly everyone involved enjoyed the experience and I particularly like that this is a long term project.”

Not only did this initiative achieve a prestigious Purple Apple Award in the Cause Related Marketing category, The Avenue’s project also came top in the small centre category in the UK wide awards in terms of points awarded which left The Avenue in the top three for the coveted Golden Apple Award.

The Avenue in partnership with Mearns Primary School’s Developing the Young Workforce provides class visits which are age group appropriate. A half hour lesson for every year group from Primary 1 to 7 has been developed with every pupil being given the opportunity to move to the next work experience the following academic year. Over the initial seven year project, in excess of 5900 pupil visits will take place, all with different learning outcomes applicable to the class year involved whilst meeting the objectives of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence.

Pictured: Michelle McCabe, Centre Manager and Katie Macleod, Marketing Executive