Rochester, NY - December 30, 2008 - PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, is pleased to announce the 2009 winners of the annual PODi Best Practices Awards. These highly anticipated awards recognize outstanding examples of digital print and variable data strategies. The awards will be presented at the 2009 PODi AppForum digital print conference in Las Vegas at the Rio Hotel, January 19-21. AppForum attendees will be treated to a first detailed look at the case studies and a chance to hear from the winners.

"It's exciting to see the growing international character of the PODi Best Practices Awards," says Rab Govil, President of PODi. "This year's winners come from the US, Canada, Finland and Australia. The use of digital print is not only increasing everywhere, the opportunities it opens up for more creative and effective communications are being explored and optimized by marketers on a new global scale. We're very excited to be able to bring many of our award winners to the PODi AppForum where they can be recognized for their successes and share their stories with all of our attendees."

Best Practices Winner: Collateral Management Category - General Motors Canada
General Motors of Canada Limited (GMCL) built an enterprise-wide customer communication tool that allows more than 675 Dealers to design and order customized sales and marketing collateral online. GM Dealer Direct, the Web-to-print solution created by CM2 Solutions Inc. for GM, enables Dealers to create targeted direct mail campaigns, easily track results and plan future efforts. Production runs are handled by The Helicopter Group. 95% of GM Dealers in Canada now use the system and over 8,000 campaigns have been produced since the initial launch. It has saved the Dealers and the corporation money and time and has improved the quality and frequency of dealership marketing efforts.

Says CM2 Solutions' Managing Director, Chris Watson, "We're very proud to have our GM Dealer Direct system recognized with a Best Practices Award. We've seen a great deal of enthusiasm from Canadian Dealers and our client has been very pleased with the quality, integration and executional effectiveness we've achieved. Receiving a PODi award for an innovative solution and use of technology is a wonderful achievement for General Motors Canada and for our entire team."

Honorable Mention: Collateral Management Category - ThermaTru & Metzgers Printing and Mailing

Best Practices Winner: Direct Marketing Category - The Maine Office of Tourism
As part of an effort to improve the effectiveness of its marketing, The Maine Office of Tourism, in partnership with DMM, Inc., Xerox 1:1 Lab Opportunity and Terminal Van Gogh, tested the use of customized digital printing versus their standard static one-size-fits-all approach. The VDP campaign featured custom travel guides based on the interests of people responding to questions on the Maine web site. The customized mailing was run against a static mailing and the results were tracked. Personalization resulted in a 24.1% increase in response rate, which translated into a 23.4% increase in revenue generated from tourism.

Theresa Cloutier, DMM's Sr. VP or Marketing, notes, "The Maine Office of Tourism was a great client - open to testing the new ideas we presented. We're very happy to be able to share this PODi Best Practices award with them and to see them recognized for their marketing innovation. The PODi award underlines the success any organization can achieve with a smart utilization of relevance and digital print strategies."

Honorable Mention: Direct Marketing Category - VetCentric & MSP Digital Direct

Best Practices Winner: Self-Promotion Category - Hansaprint
 Hansaprint's new product, Magazine 2.0, uses targeted advertisements and articles to guide readers to a customized landing page containing content, advertisements, services and questionnaires that fit the reader's profile. Their own self-promotional magazine not only provides the research necessary to prove that the concept works, it has also increased their promotional seminar attendance and doubled the number of customers requesting picture personalization. Hansaprint is based in Finland and is the leading print service company in the Baltic region.

"The Magazine 2.0 concept offers new revenue models for publishers and higher attention rates for advertisers," says Juha Jokinen, Marketing Director from Hansaprint. "Being honored with the PODi Best Practices Award gives us worldwide recognition and opens new markets for our products. I'm looking forward to presenting our case study at the PODi AppForum!"

Honorable Mention: Self-Promotion Category (tied) - Action Mailing // DMM

Best Practices Winner: TransPromo Category - ING Australia
 ING Australia, one of Australia's leading fund managers, life insurers and superannuation providers, used a carefully structured side-by-side test to prove that customized color mailers (4.8% response rate) outperformed the usual black and white communications (0.6% response rate). Working with Vectis, Digital Alchemy and HPA (A Salmat Company), ING employed strategic segmentation and personalization to increase funds under management by A$22,564,000 - a result directly attributable to this campaign.

"We're strong supporters of using essential mail to deliver targeted marketing messages," says Elizabeth Houteas of ING Australia. "The testing we've done proves that the higher the relevance, the greater the response will be. Winning the PODi Best Practices award is not only an honor, but motivates us to continue to push this technology to widen our advantage over our competition."

Honorable Mention: TransPromo Category - Mercer Australia & On Demand Pty Ltd.

The complete 2009 collection of case studies, including these award winners, will be added to the PODi Case Study Database early next year. The PODi Cast Study 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


PODi AppForum Sponsorship

The 2009 PODi AppForum is receiving strong support from leading digital print industry vendors. Gold Sponsor slots are sold out - they include Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Oce North America, Pageflex and Xerox. Silver Sponsors are Adobe, Creo Color Servers, EFI, Kodak, Online Print Solutions, Pitney Bowes Emtex Software, Press-sense and Ricoh. Easy Personalized URLs, GMC Software, MindFireInc, Printable Technologies, PrinterPresence, Siemens CMS, Xeikon and XMPie are Bronze Sponsors.

For more information or to register for the 2009 AppForum, visit www.podiforum.org