A new dynamic display at 10 S. State Street features Blue Demon basketball and lends vibrance to the city streets. DePaul Athletics commissioned the innovative storefront advertising system created by Visual Feeder, co-founded by alumna Yaxi Yang. (Jeff Carrion/DePaul University)
A new dynamic display at 10 S. State Street features Blue Demon basketball
and lends vibrance to the city streets. Clips of players driving to the
basket and dunking flash next to profiles of the student-athletes. The
innovative storefront advertising system was created by a DePaul alum and
was commissioned by DePaul Athletics to promote ticket sales for upcoming
men’s and women’s basketball games.
Visual Feeder, co-founded by alumna Yaxi Yang, provided the technology
for the immersive display and connected with DePaul through an ad
agency. DePaul Associate Athletics Director Jessica Dorsey is credited
with sourcing and managing this innovative activation. The
collaboration builds on a $100,000 investment the university made in the
company in the fall, when Visual Feeder was the first to receive an
investment from the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center’s Halperin Emerging Company fund.
“The realization of our shared vision, where new technology is harnessed to
create unique and memorable experiences, has been amazing to see come to
fruition,” says Yang, who earned her bachelor’s degree in business from the
Driehaus College of Business.
Visual Feeder, co-founded by DePaul alumna Yaxi Yang, received the first investment from DePaul’s new Halperin Emerging Company Fund. Yang stands in front of one of Visual Feeder’s displays at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. (Ioana Juravlea/DePaul University)The Halperin Fund makes equity investments in startups founded by students,
alumni and community members that show potential for growth and job
creation. The goal is for the fund to be a source of diversified revenue
for the university, helping to build financial sustainability for the long
term.
“This is an example of the end-to-end interdisciplinary work happening at
DePaul: leveraging the entrepreneurial know-how and connections of the
Coleman Center with the innovation of an alumna to meet a market need, all
while creating value for the company and the university,” says Taylor
Stapleton, executive associate athletics director for DePaul. “This should
be a model for the future.”
Founded in 2020, Visual Feeder
builds immersive activations in vacant storefronts to advertise for a range
of clients, including consumer brands, non-profit organizations, private
institutions and museums. Their displays are active on Chicago’s iconic
Magnificent Mile, in shopping centers through Chicagoland, as well as in
New York City and San Francisco.
DePaul community members interested in applying to the Halperin Emerging
Company Fund can complete an
application online.