DataLab USA Takes Home NCDM Database Excellence Award

(I-Newswire) December 31, 2004 - DataLab USA has won the 2004 Bronze Award for Excellence from the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) on behalf of its work for Associates Finance Puerto Rico. DataLab USA bested many larger competitors to win the award in the Modeling Applications Category.

The direct mail program, a highly targeted database marketing customer acquisition campaign, reversed a trend of declining response rates and decreasing margins for Associates Finance in a small, fiercely competitive market of loan prospects in Puerto Rico, which has an overall population of 3.5 million.

"Because Puerto Rico is an island nation, the market for loan prospects is extremely small, at about 600,000, so this was an enormous challenge for any direct marketing vendor," said Charmaine Llauger, Director of Marketing, at Associates Finance in San Juan. "DataLab USA stepped up to the challenge systematically and aggressively, and implemented remarkably innovative programs that successfully improved response rates. We couldn't be happier with the results, and we consider them part of our team."

DataLab USA implemented a novel two-tiered database marketing approach utilizing a newly developed predictive model and "re-mail penalty" segmentation technique to boost the declining results of the personal loan direct mail program. The innovative strategy, designed to reduced overall mail volumes while increasing mail frequency, increased program response rates by more than 10%.

"DataLab has been dedicated to perfecting the increasingly complex methods for effective direct marketing and predictive modeling for 25 years, and the results, particularly for the financial industry, have been tremendous," said Hans Aigner, President and CEO of DataLab USA. "But not until now have we sought recognition for the superior products and services we offer, and we are very honored to have been recognized by some of the direct marketing industry's top experts."

The NCDM Database Excellence Awards, created in 1996 and presented jointly by DIRECT Magazine and the Direct Marketing Association, are presented to companies that have demonstrated ingenuity and creativity in the building or leveraging of their marketing databases. The award criteria specify that the recipient has achieved dramatic results by applying statistical techniques, leveraging systems capabilities, or implementing sharp strategic thinking.

About DataLab USA
DataLab USA provides sophisticated database marketing solutions for many of the world's top companies. DataLab USA offers a complete range of innovative database marketing services to help marketing executives intelligently identify, monitor, and manage all aspects of their marketing and customer relationship programs. Services include: predictive modeling and data mining; marketing campaign analysis; data management; and data processing. Hans Aigner, an Austrian-born mathematician, founded ASC Database Marketing in 1979. Aigner, who has been a leading practitioner in the science of database marketing since its emergence decades ago, created ASC's affiliate company DataLab USA in 1999 and, in the same year, formed The Data Laboratory in London with European partners.

###

Company Contact Information