Case Study: Connecting Campus Communities with Digital Signage

University of Kentucky Sets New Campus Communication Standards with Centralized, Real-Time, Intelligent Digital Signage Software Implementation

University campuses are vibrant ecosystems bustling with activities, events, and constant information streams. Reaching students, faculty, and visitors amidst this whirlwind can be more challenging than one might think. Students, already swamped with their academic and extracurricular commitments, are inundated with messages from various sources. Visitors unfamiliar with the campus layout need help finding timely and relevant information, as paper signs often lag behind current events and updates. Effective communication demands messaging that is not only timely but also engaging and compelling.

The University of Kentucky exemplifies the transformative power of centralized digital signage. With over 30,000 students, 2,300 faculty members, and a complex array of 16 colleges and a graduate school, cutting through the noise to deliver crucial information was a formidable task. Korbyt Anywhere provided the perfect solution, implementing a cohesive communications system that is user-friendly for campus staff and engaging for the campus community.

Opening Summary

Communicating effectively with visitors, faculty, and students was imperative to ensure the University of Kentucky remained a safe and functioning community. Safety messages, campus construction updates, and wellness event promotions needed to reach students and visitors alike — but with so many methods of communication, the University of Kentucky needed to cut through the noise. Deploying digital signage across the campus for consistent messaging was a constant struggle, with over a dozen platforms managing multiple screens throughout the area.

The University of Kentucky turned to Korbyt Anywhere to consolidate its digital signage system to deliver the real-time messaging the campus depends on from a centralized platform without sacrificing the ability to deliver location-specific communications. The result was an elevated digital signage program that delivered consistent communications to the right audience at the right time with just one click.

Challenges

The University of Kentucky faced a multitude of intricate challenges when embarking on the implementation of an effective digital messaging program across its vast 800-acre campus:

Reaching Students: Traditional methods like email and bulletin boards proved ineffective. The University needed a solution to create engaging content and ensure vital messages reached the intended audience.
Consistent Messaging: With almost a dozen digital signage platforms running multiple screens on the campus and an outdated content creation system, disjointed communication led to inconsistent and ineffective messaging.
Ensuring Relevance: Widely broadcasting alerts often caused important messages to get lost. Targeted messaging was essential to effectively engaging the diverse campus community.
Timely Content Creation: Quick and efficient content creation was necessary for timely message delivery. The University required a standardized approach for real-time content sharing across various groups.

The Korbyt Anywhere Solution

The Korbyt Anywhere solution incorporated specific features tailored to the University of Kentucky, ensuring effective and dynamic communication across the campus:

Integrated Campus Environment: Leveraging the University of Kentucky’s network technology expertise, Korbyt Anywhere seamlessly integrated with the existing infrastructure, modernizing the campus with digital signage and interactive displays.
Easy Content Management: Korbyt’s intuitive CMS enabled effortless content creation, management, and publishing. This allowed the university to share information about on-campus events, safety updates, and university news more effectively, clearly communicating with all the university’s audiences: students, faculty, staff, and visitors.
Interactive Campus Wayfinding: Korbyt Anywhere helped the University of Kentucky interactively inform and guide new students, staff, and visitors with navigation to buildings, classes, events, and more.
Centralized Campaign Management: The Korbyt Anywhere platform enabled the University of Kentucky to centrally manage cross-promotional campaigns, aligning marketing efforts with campus activities and events. This strategic alignment maximized the effectiveness of marketing initiatives, ensuring that messaging resonated with the university audience.
Local, Diversified Communications: Korbyt features like clever playlists and dynamic weather simplified content creation, helping the university provide unique, real-time content to each location without complex scheduling.

Results

To tackle its challenges, the University of Kentucky consolidated its digital signage program with Korbyt Anywhere. Leveraging Korbyt’s expertise, the university achieved outstanding results.

Result 1: Expanded Campus Communication Network

Korbyt’s easy integration into the existing infrastructure allowed rapid deployment and the expansion of the number of signage endpoints across campus. Now, with 150 signage endpoints, the university has extended the delivery of event news, emergency alerts, RSS, and social feeds to the most relevant audiences in real-time.

Result 2: Targeted, Real-Time Content Delivery

With a single, unified platform, the University of Kentucky standardized its approach to content development across campus. Korbyt’s sophisticated yet easy-to-use system allows the university’s diverse constituencies to create and publish content effortlessly.

Result 3: Diversified and Real-Time Content Delivery

Using Korbyt’s consolidated platform, the University of Kentucky implemented a holistic, campus-wide content strategy, creating and delivering unique content to different signage endpoints. Screens in highly trafficked areas shared information relevant to prospective students about scholarships and necessary paperwork. The geospatial team rapidly translated updates to paper maps into electronic wayfinding displays that guided students to renumbered rooms, allowing for real-time communication of schedule changes.

Result 4: Capturing Students’ Attention

The University of Kentucky combined the power of engaging digital content formats and location-specific messaging to capture students’ attention. Through various formats ranging from graphics and video to websites and wayfinding, the University of Kentucky delivered targeted communications to different campus cohorts, such as engineering, biology, law, or business students.

Conclusion

Since implementing Korbyt Anywhere’s comprehensive digital signage solution, the University of Kentucky’s leadership and marketing professionals have realized the significant benefits they expected: a campus that feels safer, more functional, and more connected than ever before. Digital signage has become the preferred method for engaging the University of Kentucky community.

When paired with the right software and data integrations, a robust digital signage strategy offers more than just consistent content; it enables targeted and real-time messaging that provides a rich, empowering experience for campus users. With Korbyt Anywhere, the University of Kentucky has shown that effective communication in a complex and busy environment is not only possible but also easy to do.