Australia took home the gold for best practice in the TransPromo Category at the PODi Best Practices Awards early this year in Las Vegas. The Mercer Australia campaign by GASAA member On-Demand was close behind earning an honourable mention.

PODi is an industry group that encourages the growth of the digital printing industry through market and standards development activities. PODi, based in the USA, has representation worldwide, including with GASAA in this region. The Best Practices Awards are awarded annually, recognizing outstanding cases of digital print and variable data strategies.

ING earnt its award with a carefully structured side-by-side test that sought to prove that customized colour mailers outperformed black and white communications. Working alongside Digital Alchemy, HPA (A Salmat Company) and Vectis, IGA used strategic segmentation and customisation to increase funds under management by AUD $22million (this result is directly attributed to the campaign).

ING Australia are strong supporters of using essential mail to deliver targeted marketing messages according to Elizabeth Houteas, ING Australia, who was quoted on www.podi.org as saying

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 honour, but motivates us to continue to push this technology to widen our advantage over our competition.”

Mercer Australia received honourable mention in the same category for their efforts at producing unique and personalised members reports that show exact financial positions. Amongst other benefits, the new reports improved member communications with variable full colour images and dynamic graphs in premium full colour saddle stitched statements.

Mercer reported that barcoding of statements ensured total accuracy and a 100% verifiable production process. Mercer worked with GASAA member, Melbourne based printers On Demand Pty Ltd, one of Australia’s largest digital printers. With some 70 staff, On Demand produces print for some of Australia’s largest businesses.

These internationally recognised case studies, along with a growing number of regional case studies, form part of PODi's worldwide member access resource centre of over 400 examples of best practice in digital print communications. The regional case studies are listed at www.podi.com.au with links through to the international PODi site.