MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. – Carousel Digital Signage has introduced a Midwest food and grain production company to the benefits of digital signage as a reliable and efficient corporate communications platform, helping TriOak Foods create a consistent and compelling communications program that has captivated employees company-wide.
The Iowa-based pork producer, feed manufacturer and grain marketer deployed its Carousel Cloud network in Q3 2020, presenting English and Spanish-language company messages across farms and business locations in five states. Carousel’s user-friendly software has helped a small TriOak Foods team learn digital signage from scratch, and create visually compelling and informative content without intensive time commitments. TriOak Foods has also installed special Carousel Express Players to communicate the same information over the company Intranet.
Clear communication of company messages over digital signage has also helped TriOak Foods management deliver key news and messages to workers in a timelier and more accurate manner. The Carousel Cloud network promotes everything from general industry news, weekly farm updates and company memos to wellness programs and employee spotlights, celebrating milestones including birthdays, promotions and work anniversaries. The 26-screen network also delivers weather information, which is critical given the quick-changing weather elements of the Midwest. TriOak Foods has farms and offices in Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio and Oklahoma.
“Some of our locations are very remote, and digital signage has helped us achieve our goal of communicating as one company across five states,” said Rory Wagenbach, Administrative Assistant and Digital Media Team Member, TriOak Foods. “We have more than 400 employees, and it’s important to communicate company news, farm statistics and more beyond our corporate office. Carousel Cloud has shifted our approach from sending emails to management at each location in the hopes that the news is communicated across the company. We can now speak directly to all TriOak employees across all locations and a company website.”
Becca Marker, Farm Manager and Digital Media Team Member, TriOak Foods, said that the ability to communicate messages in Spanish has been an added bonus when it comes to direct employee communication. “It has been a real benefit to create content for our Spanish-speaking employees,” said Marker. “Carousel Cloud allows us to create as many channels as we need and cater those to specific audiences. That stood out to us when we compared it to other digital signage systems. We have even created unique templates for each farm, and can quickly change the data and update the schedules on a weekly basis. We are getting more creative with each week and adding new backgrounds to mix it up a bit and keep things fresh. There is just so much you can do with the software.”
“Carousel was a very user-friendly platform from the start; it’s easy to navigate and very flexible to use. One of the standouts has been how we can schedule content for certain dates and times, and Carousel just automates the playout from there. That was not available with other digital signage software we considered,” Wagenbach added.
The Carousel Cloud network architecture includes the cloud-based software – no on-premise servers or maintenance programs are required – along with AppleTV devices that serve as media players for each display. Carousel Digital Signage’s special Express Players bring the added benefit of informing employees that work from home or on the road.
“The players are embedded on the corporate employee-facing website, and this is useful for keeping employees that work from remote locations well-informed,” said Wagenbach. “It’s a good remedy for communicating important information to people that rarely are in front of our screens.”
Marker and Wagenbach agree that digital signage has modernized the general atmosphere around the company, which has a very limited amount of in-house AV equipment. That makes this a novel endeavor for a 60-year old company that, while an innovator in its industry, has not felt an urgency to invest in modern AV systems to communicate and collaborate.
“The feedback has been very positive around the company,” said Marker. “We have a multi-generational staff and people very clearly see the value in digital signage. It has really improved the communication and unity within the company.”
