Theorem, a digital marketing solutions provider, today announced a strategic partnership with Firework, the world’s leading AI-driven video commerce and engagement platform. This collaboration introduces an end-to-end, fully integrated video commerce solution designed to simplify and accelerate adoption for DTC and retail brands worldwide.

The partnership launches a series of joint initiatives, beginning with a co-branded Commerce Roadshow kicking off in July 2025 in New York City.

Driving the Next Evolution in Digital Commerce

As consumer behaviors evolve, video commerce has become essential for brands seeking to deliver immersive, instant, and interactive shopping experiences. Brands leveraging video commerce have reported:

• Up to 246% increase in conversions

• 130% increase in engagement time

• 38% increase in repeat purchases

• 33% reduction in product returns
  (Source: Firework)

“Video commerce is more than content—it’s a strategic imperative enabling brands to accelerate the path to purchase,” said Unni Kurup, Director of Consulting at Theorem. “Together with Firework, we are helping brands operationalize video commerce at scale without the heavy lift.”

Partnership Highlights

• Theorem contributes a proven proprietary commerce framework and deep MarTech expertise to help brands navigate video commerce strategy and scaling.

• Firework provides best-in-class technology including shoppable video, video showrooms, virtual 1:1 chat, and AI video assistants to boost engagement and conversions.

• The partnership delivers a fully integrated, white-label video commerce platform enabling seamless scale and measurable KPIs such as average order value (AOV), conversion rates, and customer lifetime value (CLV).

Leadership Insights

“Video commerce represents the future of digital sales—interactive, immersive, and engaging,” said Jay Kulkarni, CEO and Founder at Theorem. “By combining Theorem’s expertise with Firework’s cutting-edge technology, we offer brands a scalable solution to embrace and grow video commerce efficiently.”

“Our partnership with Theorem is grounded in shared values—strategic execution, measurable impact, and innovation,” said Sam Horton, VP of Strategic & Alliance Partnerships at Firework. “Together, we are empowering brands and retailers to deliver personalized, data-driven video experiences across the customer journey that drive sustainable growth.”

Market Outlook

Though 95% of digital commerce still occurs on traditional eCommerce sites, scaling video commerce has been hindered by strategy and execution challenges. Theorem and Firework aim to transform this landscape with a simplified, scalable approach.

With the video commerce market expected to grow from $695 billion today to $3.7 trillion by 2029 (CAGR 32%), this partnership positions brands to capitalize on one of the fastest-growing trends shaping retail and commerce’s future.

Forrester has announced Brenntag and e& as the recipients of its 2025 Customer-Obsessed Enterprise Award for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. This award recognizes organisations that prioritize customer-centricity at every level to boost sustainable growth, loyalty, and employee engagement. The winners will be celebrated at the CX Summit EMEA event in June 2025.

Highlights of the Award and Winners

Brenntag: Championing Customer Obsession in B2B

• Brenntag is a global leader in chemicals and ingredients distribution, operating in 72 countries.

• The company integrates customer obsession through initiatives like the CX ambassador programme, training over 500 employees as customer experience champions.

• The CX war room task force works cross-functionally to resolve systemic customer pain points.

• Brenntag’s approach focuses on personalized, impactful customer experiences beyond transactional interactions.

• Malc Magee, Director of Customer Experience, highlights the importance of listening, acting, and caring to build long-term customer loyalty.

e&: Driving Customer-Centric Transformation in Technology

• e& is a global technology group recognized for its comprehensive, three-year customer-centric transformation.

• The transformation aligns corporate strategy closely with the customer journey by actively listening and acting on customer feedback.

• Initiatives include the monthly "Customer Hour" for organization-wide collaboration and the "Beyond the Desk" program that fosters empathy among leadership.

• Chris Lipman, Chief Customer Experience Officer, emphasizes the commitment to customer satisfaction at all organizational levels.

Significance of the Award

• The award distinguishes firms leading customer obsession in both B2B and B2C sectors.

• It highlights the value of embedding customer-centricity into every business decision, driving measurable business success.

• Martin Gill, Forrester’s VP and Research Director, praises the winners as examples of embedding customer centricity beyond isolated interactions.

The recognition of Brenntag and e& underscores the growing importance of customer obsession in driving sustainable business growth and loyalty. Their strategies and programs serve as models for organizations aiming to place customers at the core of their leadership, operations, and strategy.

AEG Presents, a global leader in live entertainment, has promoted Joe Jaeger to Vice President, Integrated Marketing and Strategy within its Global Partnerships division. Jaeger will expand his role to lead strategic development across AEG’s live music portfolio while continuing to head the marketing team.

Career Highlights and Role Expansion

• Joe Jaeger is now Vice President, Integrated Marketing and Strategy at AEG Presents, reporting to Alexandra McArthur, Senior VP of Global Partnerships.

• Based in Los Angeles, Jaeger has been with AEG Presents for seven years.

• He has contributed significantly to brand partnerships and marketing for major festivals such as Stagecoach and Portola, as well as numerous AEG venues nationwide.

• Jaeger’s leadership focuses on connecting brands with live music fans through strategic thinking and creativity.

Previous Experience

• Before AEG Presents, Jaeger spent nearly four years at iHeartMedia in New York City, focusing on marketing solutions for national live events.

• He began his entertainment career at Fiur Productions and later worked at MTV’s Integrated Marketing division, developing branded content and sponsorship activations.

Leadership Vision

• Jaeger expressed enthusiasm about his new role, emphasizing AEG Presents’ strong ecosystem of festivals and venues.

• He aims to develop innovative partnerships that enhance both fan experiences and brand relationships.

Joe Jaeger’s promotion reflects AEG Presents’ commitment to strategic growth in live entertainment marketing. His expanded leadership role will help drive impactful partnerships and elevate experiences across AEG’s portfolio.

At the recent Accelerate 2025 conference, Varicent, a global leader in sales performance management (SPM), announced the winners of its annual Partner Awards. These awards celebrate partners who transform strategy into impactful results and shape the future of SPM.

Award Winners and Contributions

• Global Partner of the Year: Deloitte

  • Engaged executive stakeholders in global transformation initiatives.

  • Focused on certification and delivery readiness to speed up deployments and outcomes.

• North America Partner of the Year: ZS

  • Led Sales Planning initiatives that improved forecasting and sales effectiveness.

  • Helped clients uncover new revenue opportunities and rethink planning processes.

• Joint Impact Award: Argano

  • Actively participated throughout sales cycles, supporting discovery and demos.

  • Helped close key deals and accelerate project starts.

• Partner Success Award: OpenSymmetry

  • Emphasized customer success as a competitive advantage.

  • Supported faster go-lives and higher adoption with experienced teams and learning forums.

• Go-To-Market Partner of the Year: Accenture

  • Brought enterprise opportunities and collaborated closely with sales teams.

  • Helped win competitive deals and position Varicent solutions strategically.

• Innovation Partner of the Year: KPMG

  • Delivered actionable insights impacting product strategy and delivery.

  • Addressed complex implementation challenges supporting long-term growth.

• Breakthrough Partner Award: Workday

  • Fostered collaboration between sales and operations teams.

  • Enabled faster deployments and efficiency gains through early involvement.

Varicent’s Partner Awards highlight the vital role of strategic collaborations in accelerating sales performance management success. The recognized partners exemplify innovation, dedication, and impact, driving client growth and operational excellence worldwide.

Canva, the popular visual communication platform, announced a strategic partnership with Nitro Software, a leader in document and workflow productivity. This collaboration enables enterprise customers to purchase Canva and Nitro solutions together with attractive bundle discounts, enhancing productivity and creativity across organizations.

Highlights of the Partnership

• Combining Strengths

  • Canva offers intuitive design tools used by hundreds of millions globally.

  • Nitro provides enterprise-grade PDF and eSign solutions trusted by 95% of Fortune 500 companies.

• Seamless, Scalable Solutions

  • The partnership delivers a flexible, integrated offering that scales with business needs.

  • Designed to improve document creation, sharing, and management across departments.

• Enhanced Collaboration and Productivity

  • Bundled solutions aim to streamline complex document and design workflows.

  • Helps teams work more efficiently and collaboratively, driving better business outcomes.

• Customer Benefits

  • Enterprises can access exclusive bundle discounts on Canva and Nitro products.

  • The combined platform provides an alternative to inflexible legacy systems.

Executive Insights

• Rob Giglio, Chief Customer Officer at Canva, emphasized the goal of combining powerful functionality with excellent user experience to help businesses innovate quickly.

• Cormac Whelan, CEO of Nitro, highlighted the partnership as a way to free businesses from overpriced, rigid systems and maximize ROI through greater flexibility and creativity.

The Canva-Nitro partnership addresses the growing demand for simplified, integrated productivity tools that empower enterprise teams. By combining their complementary platforms, they offer a compelling alternative to traditional legacy software suites, enhancing business agility and collaboration.

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology continues to advance but has reached a plateau in accuracy improvements for English pre-recorded content. According to the latest State of ASR report by 3Play Media, human review remains essential to meet accessibility standards for captioning and transcription.

Insights from the 3Play Media Report

• ASR Accuracy Plateau

  • Remarkable progress has been made, but error rates across leading ASR engines still fall short of accessibility requirements.

  • The gap between top-performing engines and others has widened.

• Study Scope

  • Evaluated 205 hours of diverse audio content, a 30% increase from last year, spanning multiple industries and use cases.

  • Included testing of eight ASR engines and Gemini, a multimodal large language model (LLM).

• Engine Performance

  • Whisper X showed improved accuracy and avoided hallucinations found in earlier Whisper versions.

  • AssemblyAI’s Universal-2 and Whisper X outperformed Speechmatics, with all three ahead of other tested engines.

• Industry Variations

  • ASR accuracy varies by industry, highlighting the need for tailored solutions based on content type.

  • Sports content remains most challenging due to noisy environments and complex terminology, with error rates three times higher than top-performing industries.

• LLMs and Future Trends

  • Large language models are not yet ready to replace dedicated ASR engines for transcription.

  • Future ASR innovation will likely focus on real-time processing and support for non-English languages rather than further improving English pre-recorded content accuracy.

While ASR technologies are becoming more sophisticated, 3Play Media’s report emphasizes the ongoing necessity of human-in-the-loop workflows to ensure captioning and transcription meet accessibility standards. The report also suggests that future ASR developments will shift toward new applications and broader language capabilities.

GRIN, the leading creator management platform, has launched Gia (“GRIN Intelligent Assistant”), the first AI solution purpose-built for creator marketers. Integrated fully into GRIN’s platform and trained on over ten years of proprietary data, Gia accelerates and optimizes every step of the creator marketing workflow.

Features and Benefits of Gia

• AI-Powered Efficiency

  • Automates tasks that previously took hours or days, now completed in minutes.

  • Frees creator marketers to focus on relationship-building and creative campaign development.

• Strategic, Data-Driven Support

  • Trained on a decade of GRIN data to offer intelligent, tailored assistance.

  • Designed to work alongside marketers, not replace them.

• Comprehensive Workflow Integration
  Gia supports every phase of creator marketing programs, including:

  • Finding suitable creators quickly without manual searching.

  • Automating personalized outreach efforts.

  • Suggesting fair compensation by analyzing industry trends.

  • Streamlining the entire creator onboarding process.

  • Managing creator performance and retention efficiently.

• Adaptive Learning

  • Learns from user behavior to integrate seamlessly into workflows.

  • Acts like a teammate, adapting to individual marketer styles and needs.

GRIN’s Vision and CEO Statement

• GRIN has led the creator management industry for over a decade, setting the gold standard for influencer marketing technology.

• As creator marketing grows more complex, Gia represents a new era of AI designed to autonomously handle day-to-day tasks.

• Ryan Debenham, CEO of GRIN, emphasizes that Gia is built for function, not just form, truly doing the work to give marketers more time for meaningful human interactions.

Gia marks a significant advancement in creator marketing, combining AI-powered automation with human-centric strategy. By embedding intelligent assistance directly into the GRIN platform, Gia empowers creator marketers to work smarter and build stronger, more creative campaigns.

LoopMe, a global leader in brand performance, announced the availability of its Chartboost in-app bidding capability for publishers on AppLovin’s MAX platform. This integration offers publishers greater flexibility to optimize monetization strategies and adopt header bidding alongside traditional waterfall methods.

Benefits and Features

• Maximized Publisher Revenue

  • Enables publishers to develop new revenue streams and gain enhanced control over their inventory.

  • Supports operational efficiencies through unified auctioning with multiple demand sources, including LoopMe’s brand advertiser network.

• Enhanced Advertiser Access

  • Demand partners gain access to quality, transparent in-app inventory.

  • Creates new opportunities alongside existing monetization methods.

• Industry Evolution and Innovation

  • LoopMe is committed to advancing in-app bidding as a core monetization approach alongside waterfall and mediation.

  • Plans to incorporate AI and automation to enhance optimization and management, setting new standards for in-app monetization.

Customer Endorsement

Kate Ellis-Hill, Senior Manager of Ad Monetization at Zynga, highlighted LoopMe’s unique value:

“We have seen growth and a pronounced lift on banners since adding LoopMe’s bidding SDK on MAX. We look forward to continuing this successful partnership.”

Industry Impact

LoopMe’s Chartboost in-app bidding on the MAX platform aims to expand the mobile advertising market by attracting more advertisers. This innovation helps advertisers diversify their strategies to better engage consumers in an increasingly crowded media environment.