Valassis Earns Spot on 2012 InformationWeek 500 List of Top Technology Innovators Across America

LIVONIA, Mich., Sept. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Valassis (NYSE: VCI), one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, announced today that it made this year's InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the nation's most innovative users of business technology. This is the third consecutive year Valassis has been named to this prestigious list. The company was recognized for the development of its Advanced Booking Engine (ABE), a solution that optimizes ad placement requests for its clients in a fraction of time with a 98% improvement rate.

The ABE has resulted in better ad placement for Valassis' shared mail advertising clients, providing them:

• date flexibility;
• the option for alternate date placement;
• the ability to make changes later in the process; and
• reduced lead times.

This efficient solution automates what was a manual process and cuts the process time by more than half. Additionally, it provides analytics for current and future planning that previously was not available.

"As a company, we operate with speed, urgency and energy and we applied those competencies to this project," said Steve Carrington, Valassis Chief Information Officer. "We were able to develop an innovative solution by applying proven technology to our unique business situation and deliver an application that enhances both our business and that of our clients."

Utilizing a cross-functional team, a plan was developed to improve speed and agility that would contain the intelligence to systematically optimize ad placement, while incorporating established business rules, allowing more selling time and decreasing the amount of time needed to process the request.

"The InformationWeek 500 has recognized the most innovative users of business technology for 24 years, and this year's innovations were particularly impressive," said InformationWeek Editor in Chief Rob Preston. "What the editors looked for are unconventional approaches — new technologies, new models, new ways of grabbing business opportunities and solving complex business problems with IT."

The annual list was revealed last night at a gala awards ceremony at the InformationWeek 500 Conference which took place at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, Dana Point, Calif. InformationWeek identifies and honors the nation's most innovative users of information technology with its annual 500 listing, and also tracks the technology, strategies, investments, and administrative practices of America's best-known companies. Past overall winners include PACCAR Inc., The Vanguard Group, CME Group, National Semiconductor, Con-Way, and Principal Financial Group. The InformationWeek 500 rankings are unique among corporate rankings as it spotlights the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders.  Additional details on the InformationWeek 500 can be found online at www.informationweek.com/iw500/.  

About Valassis

Valassis is one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, offering unparalleled reach and scale to more than 15,000 advertisers. Its RedPlum® media portfolio delivers value on a weekly basis to over 100 million shoppers across a multi-media platform – in-home, in-store and in-motion. Through its digital offerings, including redplum.com and save.com, consumers can find compelling national and local deals. Headquartered in Livonia, Michigan with approximately 7,000 associates in 28 states and eight countries, Valassis is widely recognized for its associate and corporate citizenship programs, including its America's Looking for Its Missing Children® program. Valassis companies include Valassis Direct Mail, Inc., Valassis Canada, Promotion Watch, Valassis Relationship Marketing Systems, LLC, NCH Marketing Services, Inc. and Brand.net. For more information, visit http://www.valassis.com, http://www.redplum.com and http://www.save.com. To learn about advertising opportunities with RedPlum, please call 1-800-437-0479.

About InformationWeek Business Technology Network (http://www.informationweek.com)

The InformationWeek Business Technology Network provides IT executives with unique analysis and tools that parallel their work flow—from defining and framing objectives through to the evaluation and recommendation of solutions. Anchored by InformationWeek, the multimedia powerhouse that looks across the enterprise, the network scales across the most critical technology categories with online properties such as DarkReading.com (security), NetworkComputing.com (networking and communications) and BYTE (consumer technology). The network also provides focused content for key IT targets, such as CIOs, developers and SMBs, via InformationWeek Global CIO, Dr. Dobb's and

Valassis Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-looking Statements

This document contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following: price competition from our existing competitors; new competitors in any of our businesses; a shift in client preferences for different promotional materials, strategies or coupon delivery methods, including, without limitation, as a result of declines in newspaper circulation and/or increased competition from new media formats including digital; an unforeseen increase in paper or postal costs; changes which affect the businesses of our clients and lead to reduced sales promotion spending, including, without limitation, a decrease of marketing budgets which are generally discretionary in nature and easier to reduce in the short-term than other expenses; our substantial indebtedness, and ability to refinance such indebtedness, if necessary, and our ability to incur additional indebtedness, may affect our financial health; the financial condition, including bankruptcies, of our clients, suppliers, senior secured credit facility lenders or other counterparties; certain covenants in our debt documents could adversely restrict our financial and operating flexibility; fluctuations in the amount, timing, pages, weight and kinds of advertising pieces from period to period, due to a change in our clients' promotional needs, inventories and other factors, including, without limitation, high levels of coupon redemption rates; our failure to attract and retain qualified personnel may affect our business and results of operations; a rise in interest rates could increase our borrowing costs; possible governmental regulation or litigation affecting aspects of our business; clients experiencing financial difficulties, or otherwise being unable to meet their obligations as they become due, could affect our results of operations and financial condition; uncertainty in the application and interpretation of applicable state sales tax laws may expose us to additional sales tax liability; and general economic conditions, whether nationally, internationally, or in the market areas in which we conduct our business, including the adverse impact of the ongoing economic downturn on the marketing expenditures and activities of our clients and prospective clients as well as our vendors, with whom we rely on to provide us with quality materials at the right prices and in a timely manner. These and other risks and uncertainties related to our business are described in greater detail in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including our reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and the foregoing information should be read in conjunction with these filings.  We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Valassis

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