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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been an industry stop for those in the consumer electronics industry for decades. If you've followed tech publications for the past several years, you've seen that this show has morphed into a much more important presence for all things tech, and then of course for all things marketers must be using to reach their audience.
I decided to make the pilgrimage to Las Vegas in January to see it firsthand.
Social Connectivity
The theme that ran through much of the show could have replaced the name -
Connecting
Everyone
Socially. Yes, the
heads down culture is driving into all our devices and will further deepen this mentality. TVs, super-thin ultra books, tablets, game consoles, home appliances and automobiles are all being connected and encouraging two-way conversations among brands and consumers. In the words of Walmart's chief marketing officer (CMO) on a panel at CES: “There's no going back.”
3-D Technology
There were plenty of shiny objects and displays to grab your attention at CES. Though that’s the point of these types of shows, it’s still important to look at the possibilities and what they would mean to your audience. 3-D technology was a big part of the show, one that is becoming bigger and better through TVs, projectors and now consumer cameras to capture it all. ESPN 3-D had a major presence, showing off their investments in major sporting events. Marketers need to keep their eye on this technology. Once 3-D matures to the point where we can lose the glasses, video viewing will never be the same.
Widespread Apps
Another CES trend was apps. Apps on everything, especially televisions; you saw them on almost any device that had a screen. For marketers, this delivery method is about providing something of value to your customer. How do you build utility into your brand through an app that will eventually engage your customer on multiple devices?
Related to apps, but for screens in general -- interface design is collectively improving and sharing similarities between devices. For example, the
new Cadillac dashboard and information area looks and acts a lot like features on your mobile phone. This should provide a more level benchmark for marketers when they're creating interfaces online, mobile, touch screen retail and tradeshow displays in the next few years.
Mobile Growth
“Exponential mobility” continues to be an important theme, and your phone will continue to grow in importance as the center console of your life as it plugs into everything else and shares data across the tools you use in your daily activities (car, home automation, TV, etc.). The ability for marketers to share, transfer and secure more data continues to be of importance as the expectation of consumers is that it will all interconnect effortlessly. To put global mobile growth in perspective, a panelist at CES said, “the next billion people on the Internet will come via mobile as primary device.”
Continuing Innovation
The final piece of wisdom that I'll share with you came from Ursala Burns, CEO of Xerox. On the topic of innovation, she said, “you have to innovate just to stay flat today.” I hope that the theme of innovation isn't just a luxury, nor just confined to R&D. Innovation can drive a business renaissance in how we provide products and services to our customers and how we market and communicate about them, but it has to be ever present and required inside organizations.
About the Author::
Jason Therrien is the president of thunder::tech.
TAGS:
thundertech, marketing, CES, 2012, las vegas, consumer, electronics, show, trade, mobile, social, Media, marketers, 3-D, technology, innovation, apps
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