When walking into the office of DRM Productions at 286 East Piper Road in Mansfield, guests are immediately greeted by a pack of four-legged furry friends. It is a fitting introduction considering one of the company’s biggest successes is named for the canines cavorting around the office: the Retriever Digital Signage system.
Software designer Jay Miller created the Retriever about seven years ago when DRM clients began asking for a digital signage system, dissatisfied with the previous system DRM had distributed. As the newest employee at DRM, Miller was tasked with updating the current system, called Firefly. It didn’t take long for Miller to agree with DRM clients that the system was time consuming and hard to use.
“Most of our clients are local, small businesses; we knew they don’t really have a marketing department to build the graphics for them and they don’t have an IT department to handle any issues that might come up,” said Miller. “So that’s really when we sat down and said lets see if we can build something for who we know is going to be using it.”
DRM owner Dave Damron once bet Miller one dollar he couldn’t write a program better than the current Firefly program. Today, that dollar is framed in Miller’s office and the company is getting ready to launch Retriever 2.0, thanks to many months of long hours from Miller writing the initial program.
“I wasn’t married or had kids at that time so I was coming in at like four in the morning and working until eight at night,” said Miller with a laugh. “There was a lot of trial and error there in the beginning and a lot of Red Bull.”
The initial Retriever system was launched five years ago, described by Miller as a “let’s see if we can make this work” product.
“A lot of it was hindsight and going back and adding things; it was duct taped and super glued together,” said Miller. “Retriever 2.0 takes all the client input we’ve gotten over the last couple years and puts it into a whole new framework that lets us expand a whole lot easier. It was easy to update before, but this makes it even simpler.”
The Retriever Digital Signage system works on a “throw and fetch” concept where content is thrown to a website using a user name and password. The Retriever fetches new information from the website every ten minutes, and the digital sign display will immediately begin playing the new content once all the information has been downloaded. Miller said the systems are made for anyone to be accessible to users without being extensively tech savvy.
“We cut some functionality out to make it something people can use; our goal is to be very user-friendly,” said Miller. “A lot of the systems out there are like video editing timelines where you have to be able to drag stuff onto the video timeline, do the transitions, and drag multiple assets. With our background in graphic design it’s more template-based; so you’ve got a picture with text, you pick your picture and you type in your text and it’ll size your picture for you, and with your text it’s going to do the same.”
Since the Retriever is web-based, users can make updates from any computer, phone or tablet. Miller said the Retriever has gone national with clients from Arizona to Florida, but noted about 80 percent of their clients are in Ohio, in businesses ranging from barbershops to dry cleaners to hotels and hospitals. Miller the Retriever will run outdoor signage but most businesses use the signage indoors, either in lobbies or employee lounges.
As an active member of the “Be Focal, Buy Local” movement, Miller said one of his goals was to make the Retriever system affordable for small, local businesses. The average Retriever system is $160 a month, with various upgrades available. According to Miller, most competitors developing similar digital signage products started out selling to national corporations and then trying to scale their product down to numerous small businesses. The Retriever, on the other hand, started out selling to small businesses.
“It’s always been frustrating being in technology in this area; we’re always the last to get cool stuff,” said Miller, who has been working in technology since the 1990s. “Small businesses are always like ‘wow, look what they have!’ So we wanted to provide an opportunity for small businesses to be competitive with the large stores. We wanted to give the smaller businesses the opportunity to have the same technology.”
One business using the Retriever is Mechanics Savings Bank, the only independent local bank in Richland County. Kristi Lord, Marketing Manager for the bank, said Mechanics was happy to use another local business like DRM for their digital signage system, which was approximately installed five years ago in all branches around the county. Miller explained Mechanics has the ability to update content to all branches from their central office in Mansfield using the Retriever’s web-based system.
“For our line of work it works really well,” said Lord. “Before we had the Retriever we were printing posters and sending them to all of our many branches. The Retriever solved all of that, it saves a lot of time and it’s almost like adding a staff member, having someone out there communicating to clients all day long.”
Lord said the bank utilizes the Retriever system to educate the community, inform them of upcoming events and make the most of their clients’ time while they wait in line. Mechanics also added Retriever displays to their drive-thru banking as a large portion of clients go through the drive-thru and might miss messages in the lobby.
“When the Retriever first went live we heard a lot about it at first, because it was so new and people thought it was really interesting,” said Lord. “When we put messages on there we hear about it, and we get a better response. It is sort of a captivating display when you’re in the lobby and it’s not just text; they have a lot of talent out at DRM so they’ve put together very appealing graphics and good display options and they’re constantly updating and improving. As a client that’s so appreciated.”
Another Retriever client using the display system to communicate content is Clear Fork High School, with one Retriever display in the main commons area at the high school. Principal Brian Brown said the school has also utilized the system for approximately five years, and uses it to showcase student events, advertise weekend contests or musicals, and put up schedules.
“The kids love it, it really promotes student involvement and that leads to conversations at their tables,” said Brown. “And it’s always on display; if there’s something going on at the school everyone has an opportunity to see it. People can stand there and see some neat pictures.”
Brown said while Clear Fork only has one Retriever display for now, the school is planning on adding more in the future. This is a dream come true for Miller, who sold his 200th Retriever player on March 6 of this year. He said in the last year the company has seen very good growth, and hopes to grow to the point of adding more support people and sales people to their nine-person staff. Of course, this means more people to hold Miller to a very bold promise.
“I told everyone once we sell a thousand players, (the logo) is my next tattoo,” said Miller with a laugh.
“Most of our clients are local, small businesses; we knew they don’t really have a marketing department to build the graphics for them and they don’t have an IT department to handle any issues that might come up,” said Miller.
