Unleashed Brands, the world’s leading Youth Enrichment Platform, has named Pat O’Toole as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With over 20 years of experience in marketing and brand strategy, O’Toole has played a key role in shaping some of the world's most recognizable brands.

A Marketing Veteran with Proven Leadership

Before joining Unleashed Brands, O’Toole served as Chief Marketing Officer for Burger King US & Canada, where he led innovative campaigns that strengthened the brand’s connection with millions of consumers. Prior to that, he was Chief Marketing Officer at Mountain Dew, overseeing PepsiCo Beverages North America's 'Flavors' portfolio.

Throughout his tenure at PepsiCo, he played a pivotal role in driving growth for billion-dollar brands, including Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, Fritos, and Lay’s Dips, both in the U.S. and globally. Additionally, O’Toole has been elected twice as an Independent Director for US Youth Soccer, contributing to youth development initiatives and community-focused programs.

A Commitment to Growth and Impact

As the new CMO, O’Toole will focus on expanding Unleashed Brands’ presence and impact, aligning marketing strategies with the company’s mission of providing safe, fun, and enriching environments that help kids learn, play, and grow.

"I am thrilled to join Unleashed Brands and contribute to its mission of building world-class brands that shape the next generation," said O’Toole. "Unleashed Brands is making a real difference in the lives of children and families, and I look forward to helping expand that impact and drive meaningful growth across our brands."

Strategic Leadership for Future Growth

Unleashed Brands Founder and CEO Michael Browning, Jr. emphasized O’Toole’s expertise in brand strategy, innovation, and franchise marketing, reinforcing the company’s growth ambitions for 2025.

"Pat brings a wealth of experience in brand strategy, innovation, and franchise marketing leadership, making him a valuable addition to our leadership team," said Browning. "Marketing is at the core of Unleashed Brands' growth, and we have ambitious goals for 2025 that rely on leveraging data-driven insights and innovative strategies to move our brands forward. Most importantly, we remain focused on serving kids and families through exceptional experiences that help kids learn, play, and grow, and Pat's expertise will help us expand that mission even further."

Unleashed Brands: Leading the Youth Enrichment Industry

Unleashed Brands operates more than 1,300 franchise locations across category-leading brands, including:

• Urban Air Adventure Park
• The Little Gym
• Sylvan Learning
• Snapology
• XP League
• Class 101
• Premier Martial Arts
• Water Wings Swim School

With O’Toole at the helm of marketing, Unleashed Brands aims to accelerate its growth and impact, ensuring its brands continue to provide exceptional experiences for children and families worldwide.

Backblaze, Inc., a leading cloud storage provider, and Kandji, a top-tier Apple endpoint management and security platform, have announced a strategic partnership to offer seamless device management and data protection for businesses of all sizes.

Enhancing Apple-First IT Workflows

Backblaze and Kandji have already demonstrated success in Apple-focused IT environments, with companies like Foojee, an Apple-specialized managed IT provider, leveraging Kandji for device management and Backblaze for data protection.

"We are always looking at best-of-breed apps for our customers, and we have never felt more proud of our product offering," said Lucas Acosta, CEO of Foojee. "The three biggest benefits we have realized from Backblaze and Kandji are our time savings on our Help Desk, the increased security, and the increased reliability."

Key Benefits of the Backblaze-Kandji Partnership

This partnership enables businesses to:

• Effortlessly Deploy Backblaze via Kandji – IT teams can automate the installation and configuration of Backblaze across managed Apple devices.
• Enhance Data Security – Backblaze’s secure and reliable cloud backup ensures continuous data protection.
• Scale for Growth – Both platforms support businesses from startups to large enterprises.
• Reduce IT Overhead – Organizations can streamline device management and backup with a single, unified solution.

Industry Leaders on the Partnership

"At Kandji, we're committed to streamlining IT workflows and delivering unmatched support for Apple-first organizations," said Weldon Dodd, SVP of Global Partnerships at Kandji. "Teaming up with Backblaze makes perfect sense for customers by integrating powerful, yet simple, backup solutions into our highly automated macOS management platform."

Backblaze’s always-on backup technology ensures that business-critical data remains continuously protected, while Kandji automates essential tasks such as app deployment, compliance enforcement, and security monitoring.

"Backblaze and Kandji share a vision: delivering powerful tools that work the way Apple users expect—effortlessly and securely," said Natasha Rabinov, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Backblaze. "This partnership reinforces our dedication to providing businesses with scalable, Mac-native solutions that just work."

Empowering Businesses with Seamless Apple Device Management

With this partnership, organizations gain a comprehensive solution to manage and protect their Apple deployments, reducing downtime and maximizing productivity.

Typeform, the intuitive form builder and conversational data collection platform, has launched its Winter '25 release, introducing AI-powered capabilities that enhance the way businesses create, interact, and analyze data. By infusing AI at every stage of the data collection process, Typeform helps companies simplify workflows, save time, and elevate customer experiences.

"At Typeform, we're transforming data collection from a passive experience into a dynamic, two-way conversation," said Aleks Bass, Chief Product Officer at Typeform. "With our latest AI capabilities, businesses can create engaging forms in minutes, uncover insights instantly, and act faster—so they can spend less time managing data and more time delivering real impact."

AI-Powered Features to Enhance Engagement and Insights

Typeform AI enables businesses to create more human-like, conversational interactions while streamlining form creation, improving response quality, and accelerating data analysis.

1. Creator AI: Simplifying Form Creation

Typeform’s Creator AI allows businesses to generate tailored forms instantly. For example, an e-commerce company can simply enter a prompt like "Create a short customer satisfaction survey," and AI will automatically generate an optimized form.

Features:

• AI Form Builder – Instantly generate form questions and structure using a simple prompt.
• AI Form Import – Copy, paste, or upload a Google Form to convert it into a Typeform.
• AI Brand Kit – Apply brand colors, logos, and design elements automatically using a company URL.
• AI Form Translation – Translate forms into 25+ languages for global reach.
• AI Content Optimizer – Refine question clarity for more precise responses.

2. Interaction AI: Driving Richer Engagement

Interaction AI enhances response quality by making forms more engaging and prompting follow-ups to encourage detailed answers.

Features:

• Clarify with AI – Detect vague responses and prompt users for more detailed insights.

Example: If a SaaS company collects testimonials and receives brief responses like "I love it," AI will automatically ask follow-up questions to capture richer feedback.

3. Insights AI: Turning Data into Actionable Intelligence

Typeform’s Insights AI accelerates data analysis, helping businesses identify trends, gauge sentiment, and extract valuable insights from responses.

Features:

• Ask AI – Analyze data instantly by asking simple questions and receiving charts and insights in return.
• Topic Detection – Identify trending topics from open-ended text and video responses.
• Sentiment Analysis – Automatically classify responses as positive, neutral, or negative.
• Quantitative Analysis – Convert closed-ended responses into visual reports and charts.

Empowering Businesses with Smarter Data Collection

With its Winter '25 AI release, Typeform empowers businesses to:
Save time on form creation and analysis
Improve data quality with AI-powered interactions
Extract insights faster to drive better decision-making

This AI-driven approach ensures that companies can focus on meaningful customer engagement rather than manual data processing.

Captivate, a leading proptech solution that blends utility and amenity, has announced the launch of Captivate CANVAS—a modern digital display solution developed in partnership with Videri. This new offering combines Captivate’s industry-leading content with Videri’s cutting-edge hardware, delivering a visually stunning and highly functional experience for Class A properties.

"This partnership with Videri enables us to deliver a sophisticated digital experience that elevates the luxury perception of any property," said Marc Kidd, Chief Executive Officer at Captivate. "The combination of our premium content with Videri's hardware creates an ideal solution for modern buildings."

A Sleek, Modern Display with Seamless Integration

Captivate CANVAS introduces a sophisticated digital amenity designed to enhance tenant experience and elevate property aesthetics.

Features of Captivate CANVAS:

• Ultra-Thin Design – At just 15.5mm thick, the display offers a sleek, gallery-like frame with a matte finish, seamlessly blending into any modern interior.
• Flush Mounting – Installs with no external components, ensuring a clean, integrated look.
• Low Power Consumption – Built with sustainability in mind, providing high-impact visuals with minimal energy use.

High-Impact Content for Elevated Tenant Engagement

Captivate CANVAS delivers a curated mix of premium content, including:
Need-to-know news
Stunning photography
Compelling stories

Property managers can customize their Captivate CANVAS setup, with options for:

• Single-screen displays
• Complementary screens showcasing persistent directory or transit information

Enhancing Tenant Communication and Satisfaction

Digital displays in residential and office lobbies have been proven to increase tenant engagement and boost satisfaction by providing timely, relevant content.

"Captivate has a proven track record of delivering premium, engaging content to some of the world's most prestigious properties," said Wes Nicol, Chief Executive Officer at Videri. "Captivate CANVAS is a perfect example of how our sleek, design-forward platform seamlessly integrates into any space, creating easy, yet impactful digital experiences."

With Captivate CANVAS, property managers can seamlessly blend aesthetics, functionality, and premium content, transforming their spaces into engaging digital environments.

Pcloudy, a leading provider of digital experience testing solutions for web and mobile applications, has announced the launch of its new data center in Dubai. This strategic expansion aims to enhance real-device testing capabilities for Engineering and QA teams across the Middle East, improving application functionality and performance.

The new facility, located in Dubai Production City, provides enterprises with direct access to a comprehensive range of real devices, browsers, and non-standard devices. By localizing its testing infrastructure, Pcloudy enables businesses to test applications on multiple platforms while ensuring faster issue detection and compliance with regional data regulations.

"With this new facility, MENA organizations will have local access to real-device testing, helping them detect and address application issues efficiently," stated the company.

Enhancing Digital Innovation in the Middle East

The launch of the Dubai data center is part of Pcloudy’s expansion strategy to support businesses operating in the UAE and the wider MENA region. With the rising demand for digital services, low-latency and high-performance application testing have become critical. The new data center allows organizations to conduct testing while ensuring compliance with regional regulations and minimizing latency for quicker execution.

"The Middle East is at the forefront of digital innovation, and businesses need reliable testing infrastructure to keep pace," said Avinash Tiwari. "This facility is designed to support organizations in delivering high-quality digital experiences that align with evolving user expectations."

Security and Compliance at the Core

The new data center is equipped with multiple layers of security controls and compliance measures. These include advanced encryption, access management, and regular security audits, ensuring organizations can conduct testing activities while maintaining strong data protection and regulatory compliance.

Sawmills, the first AI-powered telemetry data management platform, has emerged from stealth with $10 million in seed funding. The oversubscribed funding round was led by Team8, with participation from Mayfield and Alumni Ventures. Founded by enterprise software veterans from New Relic, CloudBees, and Tricentis, Sawmills aims to help enterprises optimize their observability data management, reducing costs while improving system monitoring capabilities.

Tackling Observability Challenges

As modern software architectures become increasingly complex, observability has become essential for system reliability. However, organizations are struggling with high costs and data quality issues. The median company now spends nearly $2 million annually on observability, with frequent cost spikes. A notable case involved a financial services firm receiving an unexpected $65 million observability bill from Datadog.

"Engineering teams are grappling with both cost and quality challenges in their observability data," said Ronit Belson, CEO of Sawmills. "Missing data points, inconsistent formats, and duplicate data drive up costs and make root cause analysis unreliable and time-consuming. Observability has become the second-largest expense after cloud costs for most companies."

Belson further highlighted that many VPs of Engineering report that up to 90% of their observability data is unnecessary, yet companies continue paying to collect, process, and store it. Unanticipated cost surges remain a pressing issue—one company saw an additional $250,000 in fees in just one day due to a single developer’s mistake.

How Sawmills Optimizes Telemetry Data Management

Sawmills leverages AI to analyze telemetry data streams in real time, identifying cost-saving opportunities while improving data quality and system reliability. Key features of the platform include:

• Real-time Processing – AI-driven optimization of logs, metrics, and traces, detecting and correcting issues like missing data points and inconsistent formats.
• Comprehensive Control – Smart policies that enrich telemetry data, prevent system outages, and mitigate unplanned data spikes.
• Vendor Flexibility – Intelligent routing capabilities that allow businesses to switch between observability vendors without disrupting operations.

Organizations can implement Sawmills' recommendations with a single click and automate policies to prevent unexpected cost surges.

Industry Endorsements & Market Potential

Early adopters have already seen the benefits of Sawmills' AI-driven approach.

"Partnering with Sawmills has set us on a path toward optimizing our telemetry data—paving the way for streamlined costs, improved observability resource allocation aligned with our business needs, and enhanced data governance," said Edi Buslovich, VP of Engineering at Via.

Liran Grinberg, Managing Partner at Team8, emphasized the significance of Sawmills in enterprise cloud infrastructure:

"Telemetry data management is emerging as a critical new category in enterprise cloud infrastructure. The Sawmills team has a deep understanding of the problem and a comprehensive vision that perfectly positions them to own this new category. This isn't just about cost reduction; we believe Sawmills' approach to intelligent telemetry data management will massively improve observability and become essential infrastructure for modern enterprises."

With video advertising spend projected to account for 86% of new display dollars over the next three years, a gap still exists between how ads are delivered and what resonates with consumers. GumGum, a leader in contextual-first advertising technologies, has released findings from a survey of 3,000 consumers across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, shedding light on audience preferences for video advertising.

Consumer Insights from the Survey

The study highlights a growing demand for contextually relevant and privacy-conscious advertising:

• 94% prefer contextually relevant ads over those based on browsing history.
• 42% find ads aligned with their current interests the most valuable.
• Over one-third prioritize privacy, while another third value both privacy and relevance equally.
• 80% are more likely to engage with ads that match the content they are viewing.
• 55% say short, concise, and contextually relevant video ads are the most memorable.

GumGum’s AI-Powered Approach to Video Advertising

To meet the growing demand for non-intrusive and engaging ad experiences, GumGum has launched the Mindset Graph™. This AI-driven technology analyzes billions of data points to match ads with consumer context and mindset in real time.

Through advanced contextual analysis at both the page and video level, GumGum’s video solutions—instream, outstream, and overlay formats—deliver high-quality ad placements that align with viewer interests.

"Let’s face it: online video experiences today aren’t working, and video is only becoming more prominent," said Ken Weiner, Chief Technology Officer at GumGum. "Advertisers are facing poor ad performance, wasted impressions, and growing viewer dissatisfaction. To put an end to this pattern, we're using AI to analyze the billions of data points within the GumGum Platform™ every day to better understand the digital environment and mindset a consumer is in so that they want to watch the ad instead of skip it and move on."

Commitment to Brand Safety & Suitability

GumGum ensures high-quality video ad placements while maintaining brand suitability standards. It remains the only independent ad tech platform to achieve MRC content-level accreditation for contextual analysis, brand safety, and suitability across display, mobile web, and CTV.

Fluent, Inc., a leading commerce media solutions company, has announced the appointment of Adrian Stack as Chief Product Officer. Stack will spearhead Fluent’s product vision and strategy, leveraging AI-driven technologies to elevate consumer engagement and deliver high-impact solutions for partners and advertisers.

A Proven Leader in AI and Commerce Media

With over 15 years of experience in product development, Stack brings a strong track record in AI-driven growth strategies. Most recently, he led Data Engineering (Data Science & AI) at Zillow. Prior to that, as SVP of Product at Rokt, he played a crucial role in scaling the company’s commerce media business, overseeing data engineering, machine learning, and analytics.

"We’re thrilled to welcome Adrian as we continue building a world-class product team to strengthen Fluent’s AI-powered marketplace,” said Don Patrick, CEO of Fluent. “His leadership will accelerate investment in our data infrastructure and product capabilities, leveraging Fluent’s unique competitive advantages to drive better results for partners, advertisers, and consumers.”

Driving the Future of Commerce Media with AI

As commerce media evolves, brands require intelligent and scalable solutions to connect with high-intent consumers. Fluent’s investments in AI, identity resolution, and bidding technology position it as a leader in delivering hyper-relevant ad experiences and maximizing ROI for advertisers.

"I’m excited to help drive the next wave of product innovation at Fluent,” said Adrian Stack. “By leveraging our proprietary first-party identity graph and advanced machine learning models, we are creating an AI-powered marketplace that seamlessly connects brands with high-value consumers—driving higher ad relevance, increased conversions, and stronger brand-consumer relationships.”

Building on a Strong Foundation for Growth

With 14 years of expertise in customer acquisition, Fluent continues to stand out in the commerce media space through its owned and operated marketplaces and robust first-party data assets. Stack’s leadership will further enhance data strategies, product innovation, and unlock new opportunities for long-term growth and profitability.