themselves, was critical in establishing trust and creating a dialogue which exists on the same plane. We also had to look at the markets where video commerce had moved substantially beyond zero-to-one and began to dominate communication between brands and shoppers, which meant understanding the nuances between economies, cultures, tech evolution, adoption propensity, and the pool of financially viable resources capable of building systems which didn’t have an archetype in our market and would need to be integrated, then deployed differently. This was where the addition of our CTO, Rick Zhuang, was key. Prior to joining Firework, Rick was the Head of Engineering at Alibaba, where he led the development of and essentially created their Tmall Retail and Taobao Live Content Platforms. At this stage, Firework had assembled the must-have trifecta in operating an ultra-high growth capacity technology company capable of fueling creativity, revolutionizing sectors, and influencing our everyday experiences: Being extremely well capitalized, having access to product and engineering resources with an exceptionally high output means, and successfully integrating them with nonlinear commercialization and strategy operators capable of bringing our video commerce suite to life with prospective clients. Within that core, we built the connective tissue of strategic partners, customer success experts, data and analytics systems, product marketers, and business unit infrastructures required to accelerate customer adoption (SaaS ARR) and retention (NRR) across enterprise and SMB markets; all required to yield sustained, exponential revenue growth across our video commerce product and service portfolio. Key differentiators for Firework have been in developing technologies representative of the best in shopper inspiration, engagement, and conversion through video, while making them efficiently deployable for clients by way of creating measurable ROI, ensuring ease of implementation, building a proprietary CMS with its own content creation and editing suite, then committing thorough training, reporting, testing ground, and customer support. Critical from a go-to-market strategy and ideal customer profile (ICP) identification perspective, was recognizing that consumers in western markets shop differently than in China and other hyper-emerging markets that are mobile-born. In the US, UK, and most western markets, 90%+ of all retail and brand product or service transactions online still take place within that marketer’s owned digital assets. Firework technology is deployable across their website destinations (homepage, category pages, PDPs) and is enabled for both desktop and mobile platforms, while mobile iOS and Android SDKs integrate with their app (where the majority of traffic and GMV are generated for large strategic and enterprise clients). This way, the retailer or brand becomes the centre of its own ecosystem prior to the content distribution out and across its omnichannel network, including social channels. This reverses a trend originally consistent with a brand’s video living in social channels first, but there is a challenge in that these are outlets they don’t own and can have difficulty controlling, creating risk if an algorithm is adjusted, for example, in favor of their competitor paying a higher premium to target your customers. Referring to a retailer’s website or app consisting of different sections, Firework designed products to enhance and personalize the digital video shopping experience throughout that funnel: 1:1 Video Clienteling, Digital Showrooms (where always-on or cadenced, scheduled livestreams exist or can be pre-recorded, then leverage an AI layer so they remain live in perpetuity), Interactive video tools for short, shoppable videos (again, on the actual company website or in their app, where purchase intent is strongest). Directly from the video within a retailer’s app, a consumer can toggle sizes, colors, add to the cart, or make a purchase. The keys are in making this experience fun, inspirational, and the purchase frictionless. The relationship between brand and consumer will also become infinite: Always on, fully customized, and 100% knowledgeable. Enter GenAI and LLMs. Firework launched its v1 AI product in January 2024, called AVA. AVA is a customizable AI-rendered digital human shopping assistant, built to look, sound, and engage any customer exactly as if the shopper was browsing a store with their best friend. But, unlike most best friends, AVA is programmed with every piece of information that exists within the company’s back end: Product details, comparisons, pricing, consumer market knowledge, loyalty cohort and segmentation data, etc. In an app with sign-in functionality, AVA can digest everything about your purchase behavior in a hashed, anonymized state, knowing what you buy from the store that she’s helping you shop within, and what styles to recommend next. CEO Today Global Awards 2024 - USA - - 20 -
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