PODi 2011 Best Practices Award Winners Announced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
new york city, New York, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 6, 2011 --

Rochester, NY — January 4, 2011— PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, has announced the 2011 winners of the PODi Best Practices Awards for digital printing. These prestigious awards recognize outstanding examples of digital printing and relevant marketing strategies. The winners will present their campaigns and receive their awards at the AppForum digital printing and direct marketing conference, http://www.AppForum.org January 31 – February 2, 2011 at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. AppForum attendees will enjoy a detailed look at the applications and a chance to hear the inside stories.
PODi accepts case studies for the Best Practices Award competition throughout the year, and entries are judged on a combination of criteria, including measured results, value proposition, functionality, scalability, relevance, creativity, and innovation. The 2011 Panel of distinguished judges:
• Howie Fenton, Senior Technical Consultant, NAPL
• Dr. John Leininger, Professor Department of Graphic Communications, Clemson University
• Cary Sherburne, journalist, author, marketing consultant, and WhatTheyThink Senior Editor
• Jim Olsen, President, Imagination Ink

Best Practices Winner: Direct Marketing Category
Chick-fil-A and Dukky – “Chick-fil-A Increases Store Traffic”

An impressive example of a fully integrated multichannel direct marketing campaign with viral components that upped visit rates to over 279% and response rates to 120.6% easily took top honors in its category. The Chick-fil-A program featured direct mail postcards that drove recipients to personalized landing pages where they answered survey questions and activated coupons. They could then enter a sweepstakes by sharing the offer with friends through social networks, email, and SMS. This campaign provided a wealth of information to Chick-fil-A about their customers, including what media channels they use.
“Dukky is proud to work with clients like Chick-fil-A who are looking for innovative and interactive solutions in their marketing. Our ability to challenge standard response rates and outcomes by capturing the power of word-of-mouth marketing through Viral Peer Sharing is redefining expectations in our clients' campaigns,” says Renee Hall, Dukky’s VP of Business Development. “To be recognized by such a prestigious organization as PODi due to the response and redemption rates our platform allows is an honor for both Dukky and our clients.”

Honorable Mentions (tie): Rosemont College, Pacesetter Enterprises, and Digital Innovations Group – “Rosemont College Increases Fund Donations” / Oakland University and SugarBush Media Solutions – “Oakland Univ. Promotes Summer Program with Comprehensive Cross-Media Campaign”
Best Practices Winner: Marketing Resource Center Category
Mercury Marine and Pinpoint-360 – “Mercury Online Marketing Dealer Network Solution”

Marketing portals continue to be a vital solution for controlling brand and producing collateral materials for local and regional dealers or franchisees. This solution, which services 4500 Mercury marine engine dealers, a participation rate of over 77%, is a prime example of the stunning results a well-designed portal can achieve. With the Mercury Online Marketing portal, dealers can now select and customize numerous marketing products including print ads, direct mail postcards, sale sheets, billboards, and more.

“Having the ability to offer stronger, more effective creative has given our dealer network the opportunity to build their own communications programs, while allowing Mercury Marine to maintain and manage brand integrity,” says Jon Mathews, Global Brand Manager for Mercury Marine. ”Dealer involvement has been amazing.” Pinpoint-360 Principal, Bob Purtell says, “Our web-to-print platform, Pinpoint Direct was developed to provide clients with multi-channeled marketing solutions that exceed their expectations. We’re proud to receive the PODi Best Practices Award, and we thank Mercury Marine for their vision and collaborative efforts on this program.”
Honorable Mention: Dermalogica SA and Remata Communications – “Dermalogica Supports Stockists with Web-to-Print Solution”

Best Practices Winner: Self-Promotion Category
Boelte-Hall – “Boelte-Hall Drives Customer Leads”

The great thing about this cross-media self-promotion program is how easily it can translate into a similar campaign for Boelte-Hall’s corporate customers. The clever demonstration of cross-channel marketing tools, like direct mail, surveys, Personalized urls, and email, used together to drive traffic to a trade show booth, is a winning concept. This program also clearly shows the importance of an outstanding offer. The architecture, execution, and results (over 12% response rate and 25 hot leads) combined to make this campaign a winner.
Boelte-Hall CEO, Steve Hall says, "This award validates a lot of hard work by Boelte-Hall folks who continuously stretch themselves to find new ways to help customers reach their audience. In this case

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