AT&T’s Valerie Vargas to Present Keynote at PODi AppForum
ROCHESTER, NY—Nov. 1, 2011—PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, has announced that Valerie Vargas, vice president of advertising for the AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets organization, will be a featured keynote speaker at the 2012 AppForum digital printing conference, planned for Jan. 23-25, 2012, at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. Vargas is responsible for driving one of the largest transformations in the direct mail space as AT&T centralizes and automates key parts of its direct marketing operations. This consolidation is representative of a growing trend among organizations of all sizes looking for preferred partners that offer comprehensive solutions.
Vargas’ presentation—“Keeping Direct Mail Vital, Relevant & Productive”—will give attendees an insider’s perspective on how marketers can increase the efficiency of their marketing processes and how service provider companies can move up the value chain by providing marketing operations services. She’ll also address the continued importance of direct mail and the role of relevance in today’s direct marketing mix.
“We’re excited to have a winner from the direct marketing space like Valerie keynote at AppForum,” says Caslon General Manager Dave Erlandson. “Her vision and expertise has made AT&T’s direct marketing program a revenue-generating machine, revolutionizing the way that company is using direct mail.
“Service providers need to understand the realities that marketers face today. As partners, their choice is either to aggressively grow their portfolio of higher margin marketing services or to become the low-cost provider. Her insights will challenge our audience to expand their creative use of relevant direct mail. They’ll also learn how automating key parts of the marketing operations process can result in reduced costs, better cycle time and greater ROI overall,” Erlandson added.
Vargas manages the creative messaging and production of AT&T advertising across all marketing channels including online, television and direct mail. She has a long and impressive history with AT&T, telecom and financial services marketing. She was market research manager and manager of strategic alliances for BellSouth Cellular, and director of national sponsorships with Cingular Wireless. Vargas also served as senior vice preside, marketing for HomeBanc Mortgage Corp. before returning to AT&T in 2007.
The AppForum is the longest running event focused on emerging, high-margin business opportunities made possible by digital printing. The 2012 direct marketing and digital printing show is all about winning—it’s bigger and better than ever, with a conference-within-a-conference, AppForumDirect, focused on cross media and direct mail strategy, creative, execution and technology. Presentations are led by innovative marketers and their partners who are creating opportunity and revitalizing direct marketing.
In addition attendees will find new sessions on digital packaging, digital printing technology discussion panels, the latest developments in QR codes, VDP, data analysis, collateral management and web-to-print, print-on-demand and sales & business strategies.
Registration for the 2012 AppForum digital printing show is open now. Early Bird pricing is in effect until Nov. 30, 2011. The AppForum is produced by Caslon, a PODi Affiliate. For more information on AppForum, visit www.AppForum.org.
2012 AppForum Sponsors: Gold—Canon, Kodak, Ricoh, and Xerox; Silver—CGS Publishing Technologies, and HP; Bronze—Avanti, Convertible Solutions, Infigo Software, Page Technology, and PrinterPresence. Sponsorship opportunities are still available. Get more information at www.appforum.org/sponsors-info/reasons-to-sponsor.
About the AppForum
The annual AppForum is the only digital printing conference dedicated exclusively to marketing applications powered by digital print with a truly independent, vendor-neutral, unbiased agenda. All of PODi’s extensive research, resources, industry contacts, and expertise come together once a year to make the AppForum the cornerstone of what’s new and what’s next in digital print applications.
About PODi
PODi is a vendor neutral industry initiative with hundreds of member companies, including Executive Board members EFI, HP, Pitney Bowes and Xerox. The organization’s goal is to drive demand for marketing applications powered by digital print & help members build successful digital printing and relevant marketing businesses.
About Caslon
Caslon helps companies leverage rapidly advancing digital technologies, especially digital printing. Since 1998, Caslon has been the international Affiliate of PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative . Caslon provides top-level services for the PODi organization, including managing the annual PODi AppForum.
Source: PODi.