Higher Education
Uses
Digital menu boards, displays in community areas, such as campus offices, sports facilities, etc.
Presentation Tips
“We try to pull things off the school’s website and incorporate those into the demo,” says J.C. Whipple, chief operating officer of VIZIONefx, a New York integrator. That includes the school’s logo and color scheme as well as other content created and used by school officials. “You don’t want them to have to imagine what their stuff would look like.”
VIZIONefx also has a YouTube channel with examples of digital signage. “Social media makes it pretty easy to grab stuff and make it their own,” says Matt Oswalt, founder and president of VIZIONefx.
Cost
There are some “fairly economical systems” for up to 10 displays, ranging from about $600 to $1,000 per display, says Greg Littlefield, vice president of sales at CCS Presentation Systems, an integrator with 21 offices nationwide. Those systems, though, may have limited numbers of zones or need approval before the new content is published, he says. The higherend, server-based systems run up to about $2,000 per display plus a license. “Once you get it up there [during the presentation], it really sells itself,” says Oswalt.
“Once they see it move, allowing a very good demo to play through gets people talking.” One thing VIZIONefx mentions is how digital signage allows the customer to advertise the same message on multiple campuses.
Unforeseen Obstacles
“You can start with one person and you often learn that person isn’t the decision-maker,” says Oswalt. VIZIONefx will sometimes change its demos to include more educational or promotional information, depending on the audience. A lot of people still don’t understand what digital signage is, Oswalt notes, so the company often refers to it as “digital communication” or “digital postering.”
“A lot of colleges within a network may have their own technology initiatives, so these products may not necessarily be compatible with those,” says Littlefield. That means starting the pitch at the CIO level and explaining that some players are PC-based and others are Linux-based, he says.
Another potential obstacle, he says, comes with the idea of making digital signage a revenue opportunity for advertisers.
“Some look forward to it, while others are a bit more concerned and get worried about staying within some of the limitations of what they can and can’t show,” Littlefield says.
