New PODi Best Practices Winners Represent Digital Innovation
ROCHESTER, NY—January 29, 2008—PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, announced the 2008 winners of the annual PODi Best Practices Awards on January 29th at the AppForum digital print conference in Las Vegas. These highly anticipated awards recognize outstanding examples of digital print and variable data strategies.
“Every year, the awards process gets more competitive as marketers and service providers become more proficient, creative and successful with digital print and personalization. The variety of the winning campaigns reflects new directions and opportunities for our market,” said Rab Govil, President of PODi. “It’s no surprise that the Best Practices awards presentations are a highlight of the AppForum. Our industry is eager to learn about innovative ways of using this powerful combination, and they know the Best Practices awards recognize the best of the best.”
Best Practices Winner: Collateral Management Category – Invisalign
Medical device company Align Technology, Inc. created a Web-to-print system to improve and standardize creating and printing marketing materials for the Invisalignâ invisible orthodontic product. As a result, Invisalign increased sales and brand awareness with personalized marketing collateral. The award-winning collateral system reduced costs by $380,000 and cut production time from 45 days to 15. Personalized materials are standardized, ensuring compliance with regulatory and branding requirements. The campaign agency, e-Integrity, is a division of print provider Integrity Graphics.
“The PODi awards are about using technology to improve productivity, which in turn increases ROI for our clients and e-Integrity. Winning a PODi Best Practices award is public recognition that we are a client-centric organization that knows how to partner with clients, learn their business and apply best practices and technology to achieve their goals,” said Michael Iulo, e-Integrity Vice President of Sales. “PODi awards benefit the digital print and personalization marketplace by empirically demonstrating through case studies that relevant messaging at the right time combined with efficient workflows is effective! Best Practice awards provide examples of excellence that raise industry awareness of the direction industry leaders (clients and partners) are heading.”
Honorable Mention: Collateral Management Category – Prudential Retirement, RI Communications Group (Printer)
Best Practices Winner: Direct Marketing Category – Broadridge Financial Solutions
The financial industry is a prime opportunity for personalized communications. Winner Broadridge Financial Solutions uses targeted personalization to boost retirement plan enrollment. A recent spin-off from business process services provider ADP, Broadridge wanted to inform employees of changes to their retirement plans and simultaneously increase plan participation and deferrals. A multi-touch awareness campaign, including a personalized statement for each participant, helped boost overall plan participation by 6.5 percent, with 16.6 percent of eligible non-participants enrolling. The campaign increased assets under management by more than $2 million annually.
“Broadridge is honored to receive the PODi award for our personalized retirement transition statement, which enabled us to easily create and output high-impact communications for retirement plan participants. Visually compelling illustrations projecting potential account growth over time informed, educated, and motivated investors,” said Cindy Volker, Senior Consultant, Marketing Communications, “Our Retirement Plan participants are the real winners, as they benefit from tailored information that helps them make informed decisions about their retirement future.”
Honorable Mention: Direct Marketing Category – Metropolitan Sales, MSP Digital Direct (Printer)
Best Practices Winner: Self-Promotion Category — AlphaGraphics
AlphaGraphics in Billings, Montana was recognized for DirectHit, a coordinated multi-touch approach that uses technology to solve marketing challenges. Clients were impressed with eight new variable data campaigns (worth approximately $32,000) generated within two months of the DirectHit launch. Total response from the multi-touch campaign was over 37 percent, with over 20 genuine leads and presentations scheduled as a result. Heins Creative was the agency.
“This campaign was directed to our high-end, marketing-minded clients, and the national recognition from PODi gives our business a lot more credibility in marketing these programs,” said AlphaGrapics owner Keith Hermanson. “We are all trying to learn and do better with personalization, and the Best Practices are the cream of the crop and a great motivator to keep pushing the envelope. Case studies and best practices allow us to learn from others. The time it would take to do trial and error on these types of programs makes them a lot less appealing without the help of best practices.”
Honorable Mention: Self-Promotion Category – NOVO 1, Inc., Proven Direct, Trekk Cross-Media
The PODi Best Practices database is the only collection of its kind for the digital print marketplace. Access to the case studies and reports is free to PODi members at www.podi.org .
About the PODi AppForum
The annual three-day PODi AppForum is the only conference dedicated exclusively to digital printing applications, and the focused agenda lets attendees concentrate on issues that matter most to their business success. Thought-provoking sessions tackle productivity, operations, applications, technology, one-to-one campaigns, business strategies, selling and more. Print service providers and marketing experts learn the latest trends in selling and using digital print solutions. A tour of Las Vegas digital production sites offers a close up look at a variety of innovative operations. The diverse audience of printing and marketing professionals, end users, technology experts and others make the AppForum a productive and stimulating networking opportunity. The intimate, low-key vendor hall encourages meaningful one-to-one communications, while showcasing the latest digital technology and professional services. From beginners in search of a starting point, to pros in search of fresh ideas, print business owners and executives, IT directors, operations managers, marketers and vendors -- the AppForum offers something for everyone.
2008 AppForum Gold Sponsors include Adobe Systems, Canon USA, IKON Office Solutions, Pageflex and Xerox. Silver Sponsors are EFI, Exstream Software, HP, Kodak, Konica Minolta, NewPage Corp., Océ North America, Pitney Bowes Emtex Software, and Ricoh USA.
For more information about the 2008 AppForum, visit http://www.podiforum.org or call 585-239-6063.
About PODi
PODi (www.podi.org) is an industry initiative with hundreds of member companies, including Executive Board members EFI, Hewlett Packard, Pitney Bowes, Quark and Xerox. PODi leads the evolution of the digital printing infrastructure by promoting interoperability through standards, and advances digital printing business opportunities through market development activities, including white papers, articles, independent reports and industry speaking engagements. Membership in PODi is open to companies and organizations involved in digital printing.
