Case Study: Indianapolis Colts

Indianapolis Colts, also known as the Colts, are an American football team that compete in the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the world. Currently based in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Colts were originally founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1953 where they won two Championship games and one Super Bowl game. Since relocating to Indianapolis, the Colts have won a further three championships and one Super Bowl game.

A need for uniform signatures

Branding for any NFL team is a huge part of their identity, Indianapolis Colts are a team who take pride in their blue and white colors, and their horseshoe logo. The Colts’ brand is internationally recognized, which makes it essential for their branding to be consistent across the board, including in corporate communication.

Although branded email signatures were already in place on Indianapolis Colts users’ emails, they were implemented manually. This meant end users would have to update their own signatures with the latest logo, or campaign banner. “The adoption of updating signatures manually in the organization was mixed,” said Ryan Fannin, Director of Football Information Systems. “Some users would add the new logo and campaign banner, and others wouldn’t.”

“We needed to find a solution that would ensure uniformity and compliance on all users’ email signatures in the organization,” explained Mr Fannin. “I found out about Exclaimer after it had been recommended to me by the NFL Exchange Administrator. Other teams in the NFL also swore by Exclaimer, they really liked its solutions.”

Finding a solution to fit their needs

At the time, Indianapolis Colts were in the process of migrating from on-premises Exchange to Exchange Online. This meant that they needed to implement a hybrid setup of Exclaimer Cloud - Signatures for Office 365 and Exclaimer Signature Manager Exchange Edition.

“After doing some research of my own, I couldn’t find a bad word about Exclaimer Cloud or Signature Manager Exchange Edition, so I booked a demo,” explained Mr Fannin. “The solutions looked really easy to use, and after the demo I began the implementation and a testing procedure.”

“Exclaimer’s support team assisted with the deployment of the hybrid setup through remote sessions. The setup seemed really simple, but we had assistance with rules in Office 365 and had the design team build out our signature design, which they mimicked flawlessly,” said Mr Fannin. “I then tested out the solutions and applied the signatures to a few members of the IT staff, after proving it through proof of concept it was given the final go ahead by management.”

A flawless experience

“With Exclaimer, we can now force email signature uniformity, and start campaigns for different departments,” said Mr Fannin. “For instance, we can give our Mascot group their own unique campaign banner, while the Ticket Sales group can have another unique banner, but overall our branding on users’ signatures is going to be consistent.”

“Exclaimer’s solutions have been flawless; the whole organization now has consistent, branded email signatures,” concluded Mr Fannin. “Exclaimer has bent over backwards for us – the support is fantastic. I highly recommend the solutions.”