Wowing Winners in Las Vegas For The Chain Of The Year Awards

CStore Decisions, a trade publication based in the USA, gives the Chain Of The Year Award annually to the US based convenience store chain that demonstrates operational excellence as well as a sound business sense for sustainable growth into the future. This year’s event was held at the STRAT, a venue 108 stories high in Las Vegas and had record breaking attendance, where they typically see about 150, this year they had 229 in attendance!

This year was their 35th award ceremony, making it the oldest and most prestigious award in convenience retailing. So in celebration of this they had a brand new colourful logo created, this was to be the inspiration for the award. There was a need for a new award because they had recently updated the branding on their event and wanted to match the new “vibe”. They also wanted an award that would come out crisp and bold in their photographs. So, it was a great opportunity to call on EFX!

On the night, CEO of the 2023 Chain of the Year winner TXB, Kevin Smartt presented the annual award to Pilot CEO Adam Wright. “This year, CStore Decisions has named Pilot Company as the 2024 Convenience Store Chain of the Year, and this accolade is not just a title. It reflects years of hard work, resilience and relentless pursuit of excellence,” said Smartt. Pilot is a US based motorway travel centre with 900+ locations.

We first met the client when she was a Global Events Planner overseeing programmes in London a long time ago. “I was immediately drawn to your products, fast forward 6 or 7 years, I oversee my own organization now and have decision making abilities on event aspects like this. It was a no-brainer to give you guys a go for this event.” We love to hear that we have stayed in client’s minds over the years for the best awards and trophies!

New Logo, New Design

Will in design created this exciting layered and most importantly colourful trophy for the client, who was delighted with the result. The award was created in a silver and gold anodised aluminium layered top, with a digitally printed front.

The client spoke about their experience of designing with EFX – “I found the whole experience very pleasant. I spent some time on the “off the shelf” section of the site so I had some ideas of what I wanted and what was possible from that before contacting the team for a custom product. It only took a few rounds to get it perfectly right, which happened quickly! Even with international shipping, our trophy wow-ed our award winners, came in ahead of schedule, and on budget!… Looking forward to delivering this new version of our trophy moving forward!”

Even the security guard at the airport was impressed – “I did get searched by security at the airport, as I had it in my carry on and even the security agent was impressed. Which made a good story for my team.” It’s true that EFX make show-stopping or should we say security stopping awards!