When A Successful Boston Company And Local Non-Profit Came Together During the Pandemic, Beautiful Things Happened

Boston, MA — Pixability is a successful 11-year old private company in Boston that builds software that helps brands and agencies drive optimized advertising campaigns on YouTube, YouTube on TV, and Connected TV platforms like Amazon Fire, Roku, and Hulu. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, the majority of the company’s clients paused their advertising, creating a lot of uncertainty for the employees of Pixability. The company had just moved into a brand new office space next to TD Garden, a floor below the offices of the Celtics executive teams. The Pixability team was only able to enjoy this great new space with views of the Garden for two weeks before they had to go and work from their homes like much of the rest of the country.

While it was a scary time for the company and the country, Pixability bounced back. Advertisers came back, and consumer viewership of YouTube and Connected TV skyrocketed as people spent their days at home looking for ways to entertain themselves. Pixability ended up having the most profitable year in the company’s history — but that is not what the company is most proud of.

During this challenging year, the Pixability team not only doubled down for its customers but pulled together as a company to help organizations that had the greatest need. With the help of TUGG (Technology Underwriting Greater Good), an organization that matches companies in New England with Boston nonprofits in need, Pixability was introduced to Sitters for Scholars (which at the time was called “Sitters Without Borders”), and a great relationship was formed.

Sitters for Scholars is a first-of-its-kind service that offers free, quality in-home evening babysitting services to income-eligible parents attending college or a certificate program in the Greater Boston area. The lack of affordable evening child care is a significant barrier for working parents who want to pursue their education. Founded in 2014, Sitters for Scholars matches student parents with caring volunteer sitters who want to help a family achieve economic security and stability. The challenge for the organization was getting the word out. “Sitters” needed marketing help, and when they described this issue to the team at TUGG, TUGG connected them with the marketing team at Pixability.

“I’m so happy that Sitters for Scholars could work with a local company like Pixability to help us tell the story of the great work that’s being done for parents like me,” said Rosa Nin, a former Sitters for Scholars client who is now on the organization’s board. “This organization changed my life by providing me with childcare, so I could get a degree and lift my family to where I knew we could be economically.”

Pixability’s marketing team worked with the Sitters team to identify the most significant issues to address: the organization’s name, its logo and visual brand, and its website. The organization’s name had always been Sitters Without Borders, which Pixability thought wasn’t a perfect fit for the group’s work, so they surveyed local parents. After this feedback, the Pixability and “Sitters” team came up with a great new name, Sitters for Scholars.

The teams then addressed the logo with help from Pixability’s head of graphic design Ellen Flaherty. With input from Flaherty and Pixability’s UX expert Yassi Louhghalam, the Sitters team also created a new website with a better user experience. The new name, logo, and website are all rolled out this week, on June 23rd.

“We were just so impressed with the amazing work that this organization did, but we knew to spread the word, they needed to have a clear identity that expressed trust and warmth,” said Matt Duffy, CMO of Pixability. “Ellen and Yassi and others from the Pixability team came up with great ways that the team from ‘Sitters’ could make their changes to their brand that we knew would have an impact.”

The team from Sitters for Scholars was also thrilled:

“Our focus has always been helping parents pursue higher education and elevate their economic position, but as we grew, we knew we could tell our story in a more compelling way,” said May Vaughn, Sitters for Scholars’ Executive Director. “The team from Pixability and TUGG felt like an extension of ours. We loved working together to chart this next phase of our organization’s growth.”

About Pixability
Pixability is a technology and data company that empowers the world’s largest brands and their agencies to maximize the value of video advertising on YouTube, YouTube on TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. The company’s industry-leading optimization and insights solutions are independently verified by the YouTube Measurement Program, DoubleVerify, Oracle Data Cloud’s Moat Measurement, Integral Ad Science, and other third parties. Pixability’s suite of solutions is used by the top media agencies and brands, including Dentsu-Aegis, Havas, Interpublic Group, Omnicom, Publicis, and GroupM, as well as Swatch, Bose, KIND, Hilton, Jack-in-the-Box, and Puma. For more information about Pixability, please visit www.pixability.com.

About Sitters for Scholars
Sitters for Scholars: Helping Student Parents Succeed is a non-profit with a big mission — providing free babysitting to parents to help them reach their educational goals. They match income-eligible student families in the greater Boston area with free in-home evening child care provided by quality volunteer babysitters. COVID-19 forced Sitters for Scholars to suspend operations for more than a year, and student parents were catapulted into the world of online classes. Now, armed with a new name and enhanced social media, we eagerly prepare for the Fall 2021 semester to renew our efforts to provide vital support to student parents. For more information about Sitters for Scholars, please visit our new website: www.sittersforscholars.org.

Sitters for Scholars Contact
May Vaughn
Sitters for Scholars
(617) 777-6749

Pixability Contact
Alexandra Levy
Silicon Alley Media
(650) 996-5758