INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

Indianapolis Colts chooses Exclaimer to streamline their email signatures while migrating to Office 365 (now Microsoft 365) from Exchange on-premises.

About Indianapolis Colts

Indianapolis Colts, also known as the Colts, is an American Football team that competes 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 the team won two Championship games and one Super Bowl game. Since locating 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 its identity; the Colts is a team that takes pride in its blue and white colors, as well as its lucky horseshoe logo. The Colts’ brand is internationally recognized, which makes it essential for their branding to be consistent across the board, including on corporate email communications.

Although a branded email signature was already in place at the Colts office, it had to be implemented manually. This meant that end users would have to update their own signatures with the latest logo or campaign banner. “The adoption of updating signatures in the organization was mixed,” said Ryan Fannin, Director of Football Information Systems. “Some users would add the new logo and campaign banner, while others wouldn’t.”

“We needed to find a solution that would ensure uniformity and compliance on all users’ email signatures throughout 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, and really liked its products.”

Implementing a hybrid solution

At the time, the Colts’ IT department was in the process of migrating from on-premises Exchange to Exchange Online. This meant that it needed to implement Exclaimer’s cloud-based solution.

“After doing some research of my own, I couldn’t find a bad word to be said about Exclaimer, so I booked a demo,” explained Mr Fannin. “The products looked really easy-to-use, and after the demo had taken place, I began the implementation and a testing procedure.”

“Exclaimer’s support team provided expert assistance with the deployment of our hybrid setup through remote sessions. The setup was really simple, but we needed additional assistance with rules in Office 365, so their design team rebuilt our signature designs for us, which they mimicked flawlessly,” said Mr Fannin. “I then tested out the Exclaimer solution, applying the signatures to a few of the IT staff. After proving it worked 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 run banner 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. Overall, our branding on users’ signatures is always going to be consistent.”

“Exclaimer’s solution has 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 their solutions.”