Digital Signage Boosts ROI at St. Louis University

St. Louis University first became aware of digital signage at Infocomm in 2007. Since then the university has deployed digital signage in a dozen locations across campus including in residence halls. The signs are connected via the school’s WAN with a dedicated content channel for each department.

In addition to academic programming, the digital signage also displays public safety warnings. For example, in 2004 when a deadly tornado swept through the area, the NEC displays warned students of what was happening and as a result people were able to seek shelter. None of the students or faculty at St. Louis University were injured during the storm.

The school has also installed video walls rather than projectors in many of its lecture halls.

“When we documented what the costs of projectors would be for these purposes, along with the cost of lamp replacement and other maintenance and labor costs, plus the down time that comes with that, it was clear to the administration that video walls was the better way to go,” says Craig Williams manager of St. Louis University’sMulti Media Services.

That analysis included the cost of spare displays that the school’s maintenance department would keep on hand to hot-swap in the event one of the displays went down. “If a lamp is out it can take a room off line for up to two days; the spare display can be hot-swapped in less than a single day,” he explains.

There are now a growing number of video walls throughout the university’s auditoriums, two 2 x 2 NEC display walls, one 3 x 6-unit display and two 5 x 5 configurations, with another 5 x 5 soon to be added in a former gym being refurbished as a 1,000-seat auditorium.

A detailed cost-of-ownership study prepared by the Multi Media Services department established that on a seven-year basis the school would save approximately $75,000 using video walls versus high-performance projectors for its medical school imaging applications.