|
Education
Stamp
Student Union: Pulling Students In 
Stamp Student Union at
the University of Maryland is a bustling center for activities and is
visited by over 20,000 students a day. The University has recently
celebrated their 150th anniversary and has over 40,000
undergraduate and graduate students. With nearly half the student body
coming through the doors each day, the Stamp Student Union Marketing
team is constantly looking for ways to grab, inform and excite their
visitors.
AxisTV has been running
in the facility for 18 months, following a six-year building renovation.
Stamp IT personnel chose AxisTV after viewing a product demonstration at
a conference. The system replaces an old, outdated product installed by
another manufacturer. Andy Mrusko, Marketing Coordinator for Stamp, is a
fan of both the form and functionality of the AxisTV digital signage
solution. “The system is clean and modern. It compliments the new
building design.”
Boasting five
restaurants, a food court, gallery, arcade, bookstore, food co-op, copy
center, banking, bowling, billiards, and the popular Hoff Theater, Stamp
has a constant stream of events, announcements and advertising to
deliver to their audience.
One of the primary
challenges met by the AxisTV system was the need to improve
communication to the student body in both an efficient and effective
manner. Mrusko comments, “Our goal is to keep the student union alive
and to pull students in. AxisTV helps by drawing more students to us who
are interested in what we’re delivering.”
Two Marketing Assistants
create the bulk of the bulletins, with a few departments publishing
directly to the system. The user-friendly nature of AxisTV has made it a
hit with the people who are responsible for managing such a large amount
of content. Karlena Walker comments, “AxisTV is so easy to use. We often
create bulletins in PowerPoint® or PhotoShop® and then import them into
AxisTV. Kristie Pope, our other Marketing Assistant has a design degree.
I have some layout experience, but am not formally trained.” She
continues,” AxisTV has the capability to deliver so much information in
such a timely and creative manner. It really pulls people in.”
Stamp is currently
running AxisTV on seven plasma displays placed throughout the Student
Union. A Professional Edition Content Server and two Rack Mount Channel
Players deliver communications to the plasmas, and to a dedicated cable
channel that feeds every student dorm room and classroom. The Video
Window, Graphic Link and Schedule Display options allow the Marketing
team to incorporate videos, external graphics and event schedules
extracted from Scheduler Plus® by PeopleCube.
Events are extremely
important to the success of Stamp’s AxisTV strategy, with one content
block dedicated to schedule information. Approximately one-third of
bulletin topics come from Student Union department announcements, while
the bulk concerns upcoming events that are advertised right up until
their start time.
“Our marketing has
become refined to the point that we get an overwhelming response from
students,” says Andy Mrusko. Students prefer to check the AxisTV system
for information.”
His team is currently
working to standardize AxisTV policies and is considering allowing
students to submit content for approval and publishing. Live original
programming in the form of 15-30 minute “TV shows” produced by campus
groups begin broadcasting in early 2007, and the Marketing team plans to
exploit the Video Window option by offering more motion content,
specifically theatrical previews for the in-house cinema.
Mrusko continues, “The
plasmas create visual excitement. Students stop in their tracks to
watch." Walker adds, “AxisTV is a great resource. Every university or
institution needing to get a lot of information out to a large number of
people should have it.”
►
Download PDF Version of this article (853Kb)
|
