‘At the end of the day, we do more than manage health care’
The importance of well-educated, -prepared leaders in the workforce
January 6, 2025
NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN – Brandon and Amy Zunker, co-owners of Drip Media – a company specializing in digital advertising, web design, digital signage and time-lapse video – are taking the digital advertising and infographic industry one step further.
Meant to be in North Central WI
The couple, both originally from Merrill, said they reconnected in Milwaukee roughly 15 years ago.
After getting married, Brandon said he and Amy had twin sons and started thinking about leaving the city and their current jobs.
“We both lived there for 15, 18 years… and we just found ourselves alone,” he said.
In pursuit of being closer to family, Brandon said he quit his executive-level job for a “medium-sized ecommerce” business selling musical instruments, while Amy left her managerial-healthcare position, and they moved back to North Central Wisconsin.
“Just between daycare and juggling the babies,” he said, “within the first several months we’re like, ‘Yeah, we probably need some help. How do we get back to Wausau?’”
Brandon said following the move, “sometime over the next year,” he and a few of his friends began talking about starting a business together and came up with the idea for Drip Media.
Paper versus pixels
In the Northwoods, Brandon said it’s very common to see paper advertisements hung in the restrooms of restaurants, bars and other establishments.
“It’s really constant in the Northwoods,” he said. “We travel, (we go) snowmobiling, we go up north to different places, and we see paper ads in the bathrooms all over the place. And we (thought we) can do that, and we can do it better.”
Brandon said after deciding to move forward with the paper signage idea, he and his now-former partners started drawing up a business plan that was soon derailed after a trip to the Twin Cities.
“One of those guys was traveling through Minneapolis, and they saw a digital screen in the bathroom,” he said. “So we’re like, ‘Well, that’s what we have to figure out – we have to do that.’”
Following that digital revelation, Brandon said they went to work – not to do what had already been done, but to make it better.
“It took about six months,” he said. “We found a factory, and we challenged them to do this display in the way that we wanted it done.”
Unlike most digital restroom advertising displays, Brandon said Drip Media developed “a digital monitor that can go in the restroom that does not require an electrical outlet or a battery.”
Through his role as president of the Indoor Billboard and Advertising Association (IBAA) – a position he’s held since March of 2024 – Brandon said he found that Drip Media was the only digital advertising company to introduce the “type of hardware” they use to discard the need for a traditional power source.
“We know there’s a couple of other (similar) things out there, but I’ve investigated how they’re doing it, and it’s still not the same,” he said. “It’s still a little more complex than what we have figured out.”
Multi-faceted business model
Brandon said he and Amy became IBAA members immediately after officially launching Drip Media in 2019.
In spring 2022, Brandon said he was elected as vice president, and president thereafter.
“I’ve talked to every other company in that association I know that’s doing digital, and have offered our help in getting them set up with this technology,” he said. “These are companies that have their own identity. They’re not using the ‘Drip Media’ name, but they’re using our technology, our software.”
Drip Media’s business, Brandon said, consists of two facets: advertising and technology.
“We have indoor digital billboards that we sell advertising on… that’s our money maker,” he said.
While operating the digital displays and selling the advertising opportunities they offer, Brandon said he and Amy recognized a huge issue through working with their South Carolina-based manufacturer.
“They basically tied our hands to their software for two years if we bought (their) displays,” he said. “So in the first two years of running their software, we recognized that we can’t be tied to paying somebody else. (The) monthly licensing fees just got very expensive.”
That’s when Brandon said he and Amy decided to develop their own proprietary software.
“We basically had a dream to develop our own software,” he said. “It took us four years to get to that point.”
Initially, Brandon said he and Amy developed Drip Media’s software to reduce the cost of operating their own billboards before realizing they now had both a hardware and software solution to help address the struggles of digital advertising.
“Once we had our own software, we then decided to start branching out and offering solutions for other people to manage their monitors or manage their TVs or displays,” he said. “I’m not a reseller of software or hardware. I’m the manufacturer and seller of those two items – and we are unique, because we do it all ourselves here in Central Wisconsin.”
Knowing that they could offer software that’s “better and cheaper than what you can find online,” Brandon said he and Amy started advertising that Drip Media can “sell you the solution and you can do whatever you want with it.”
The advertising
To ensure they can service and support the digital restroom displays owned and operated by Drip Media, Brandon said they focus on the North Central Wisconsin territory.
“In 2019 and early 2020, we installed 100 of these indoor digital billboards that are primarily in the restrooms,” he said.
Brandon said Drip Media’s technology provides customers with an opportunity to spruce up their advertising.
“We basically go in and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this cool thing. Can we put it in your (restroom)?’” he said. “We give them one slide on the slide show for their internal content… So that’s their benefit (and) that’s how we get those displays into places.”
Brandon said Drip Media will also utilize one of the nine slides for their personal advertisement and then sell the remaining slides to other interested companies.
“There’s (usually) up to seven different advertisers,” he said. “We don’t allow any competing businesses on those billboards. The ad can be static, or (it) can be video – full HD video, or even just animation – however the designer creates it.”
Another advantage to Drip Media’s advertising method, Brandon said, is the increased attention ads get when displayed in a restroom.
“We have such a competitive advantage over roadside billboards, TV commercials and everything else, because of the dwell time,” he said. “We have a 72-second loop (and) the idea is that when someone enters the restroom… we can guarantee people are going to look at these displays. It’s a completely captive audience, and they’re going to see that ad two to three times when they’re in (the) space.”
Within that 72-second loop, Brandon said each of the nine slides will typically occupy the screen for eight seconds at a time and are sold monthly.
Another unique feature of advertising with Drip Media, Brandon said, is that companies can rotate their ads throughout the month.
“They can occupy one space for $40 a month and have multiple ads rotate in that space,” he said. “So first time through is ad one, second time through is ad two, (etc.)”
Brandon said Drip Media will also “donate space, generally $1,000 a month,” to nonprofit organizations when extra slides are available.
The software
Brandon said after he and Amy opened Drip Media and began installing their digital displays in restaurants across their area, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and closed all the establishments down.
“Within a few months, we obviously had to furlough and let go of people,” he said. “Then I had to go make some money – so I started a small construction company and basically walked away from the business after a few months.”
When he pivoted back to Drip Media, Brandon said Amy lost her healthcare job.
“I got back into the business, and then jump forward to April of 2023 – Amy lost her job,” he said. “At that point, we had 100% ownership, and then in November of that year – after six months – her old employer called and said, ‘Hey, you’re awesome. We really need you back. We’ve got this perfect position that can be remote.’”
Now working part-time for Ascension Healthcare, Brandon said Amy splits her time between that and Drip Media.
With a team of roughly five additional employees, Brandon said he and Amy are now working to grow both the digital advertising and software solution parts of the business.
Though she has no formal education in software development, Amy said her passion with Drip Media lies in helping create custom software solutions for their customers.
“I’ve been a nurse for 20 years,” she said. “So helping people… training people, working with people, individualizing plans (to be) what they want kind of ties in with nursing.”
Working with the company that develops Drip Media’s baseline software, Amy said she can take customers’ requests and adjust elements as necessary to achieve their vision.
“(The software company) creates that technology, and then I figure out how to make things happen,” she said. “We can get super complex and have several different zones running on a screen at one time, have playlists within playlists and schedule detailed availability. So if you only want a slide to play for an hour on Fridays we can make that happen.”
Amy said before she and Brandon decided to develop their own software, she “auditioned” several digital signage softwares for Drip Media, giving her a breadth of knowledge to work with when deciding what features to include in their own product – both technical and personal.
“The thing that is missing with most digital signage – even if it’s an awesome, digital signage software solution – a lot of times it’s $70 a license or something crazy, plus you don’t have the support,” she said.
A unique aspect of Drip Media, Amy said, is that she and Brandon’s team offer continued support to their customers – consulting them on the digital displays, software and even sometimes, graphic design.
“When I’m setting up a new customer with digital signage, I always create a slide or two so… there’s something on their screen, instead of it being just a blank screen,” she said.
Though not advertised as a graphic design company, Amy said she will help their customers create eye-catching ads because they are important to building and maintaining Drip Media’s reputation.
“(If) somebody walks into a place (and) they’re like, ‘Oh, where is your digital signage from?’… I want it to look good,” she said. “If our name is associated with it, it needs to be a good product.”
Drip Media’s proprietary software is sold via a monthly subscription that Brandon said is priced at roughly half what their competitors usually charge.
“We are typically selling (the software) at $20 a month – (so) $240 annually, gets you access to our software,” he said. “Google Calendar, different weather widgets, Google Slides, CNN, Fox News… all that stuff is built in, so it’s a really robust platform.”
To learn more about Drip Media, visit its website, dripmedia.com.
