SM Supermalls ends 2025 with seven awards for customer-centered excellence

Editor’s note: This press release is sponsored by SM Supermalls and was handled by BrandRap, the sales and marketing arm of Rappler. No member of the news and editorial team participated in the publishing of this piece.

In its 40-year anniversary, SM Supermalls has more to celebrate with its receipt of seven key industry distinctions from three respected and influential award-giving bodies.

Recognizing SM’s best practices in line with its evolution into a bold new era of service to customers and surrounding communities, Brand Finance crowned the mall giant as ASEAN’s Strongest Retail Brand for 2025. Adding to this are wins from the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) with one silver and three gold awards, and two awards from the Philippine Association of National Advertisers (PANA) for SM’s marketing excellence and community service.

“Our customers forged us into who we are now,” said SM Supermalls president Steven Tan. “Their satisfaction influences how we operate and continue to evolve. It is because of our pursuit of shared success with our customers and partners that we’ve remained tenacious in innovating so we can meet them where they are at, satisfying not just what they need, but want and could want in the future.”

Sharpened instincts, elevated service

Customer centricity continues to fuel SM’s drive for evolution as it enters a new era of service. Tan emphasized anticipating and meeting the changing palate of its customer base amid a fast-evolving retail landscape through innovations led with sustainability and reinforced with diversification.

“We’re relentlessly focused on satisfying modern customer considerations and buying behavior with the design of our malls, intuitively clustering tenants to maximize their exposure. Tenants such as first in market, world-class local and global brands have been added to our portfolio so our customers have more variety and choice, while our evolved discipline of marketing to our customers ensure each visit to our malls enhances their experience.”

It is this thrust that earned SM the title of ASEAN’s Strongest Retail Brand for 2025, awarded by Brand Finance, the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. Across the whole country, SM Supermalls scored a hefty Brand Index Score of 95.00 out of 100. 

Enhanced mall traffic and customer engagement fueled by streamlined data

But keeping a strong pulse on customer sentiments meets the challenge of volume and disjointed data threads. To overcome this, SM streamlined its assessment of communication data to understand customers better, meeting and satisfying shoppers attention directly with strategic resource funneling. Because of this, SM saw an increase in drive-to-mall intent, with one of the key highlights being increased foot traffic in the Mall of Asia by 15%.

This practice earned SM four distinctions from AMEC: one Silver for Best Use of Integrated Communication Measurement/Research, and four gold awards for Most Effective Planning, Research, and Evaluation – APAC; Most Effective Planning, Research, and Evaluation in Consumer Communications; and Most Impactful Use of Insights and Analytics Recommendations.

SM Supermalls Executive Vice President for Marketing Joaquin San Agustin underscored how customer centricity is rooted in one essential priority—listening.

“Apart from enhancing customer experience within our malls, closely listening to the change in their sentiments allowed us to evolve, speak their language, and sharpen our instinct for the kind of elevated service they are looking for. Listening to our customers grounds all our efforts in real, actionable strategies,” said San Agustin.

Driving stronger value for communities by reinventing the role of malls

Enriching its customer-focused operations, SM also integrated sustainability measures into its mall initiatives to strengthen community impact.  

“Our commitment to our customers naturally grew into a dedication to enriching our surrounding communities by maximizing the foot traffic we receive and the mall space we have,” said Tan. “With this, customers started associating us with a brand that goes beyond what a mall is and the role it plays in everyday life,” said Tan. 

SM Cares, the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of SM Supermalls, launched “Book Nook” in SM Aura and SM Podium as a means of sharing the joy of reading and providing a conducive environment for moderated learning sessions across different age groups. What started as a post-pandemic initiative aimed at addressing book accessibility issues grew into a larger-scale advocacy of setting up a dedicated space not just for reading but learning in SM malls.

Powered by book donations from generous partners and mallgoers, Book Nook generated 64 reading sessions with a total of more than 10,000 participants on top of more than five million mall interactions throughout one year.

The initiative was so successful that, apart from receiving a bronze Best Showcase for On Ground Activation from the PANAta awards, the concept launched a third iteration in SM North EDSA, with the SM Aura space undergoing remodeling for re-opening in 2026.

“Our efforts to evolve and redefine the role we play in the communities we occupy stem from the heart of our operations, which are our customers,” said San Agustin. “SM would not have been able to grow to its current scale now if not for them, and it is only right that we persist in our mission to deliver the best to them, our partners, stakeholders, and communities.”

San Agustin was also the recipient of the PANAta Executive Brand Builder of the Year Award. – Rappler.com