CES 2016 – A Round Up

The self-proclaimed "world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies", CES 2016 has been as popular as ever. Here's our roundup of the most important new tech innovations relevant to marketers.

More marketers than ever from across industries are now attending the huge Consumer-Electronics show, CES which takes place every January in Las Vegas. Marketers now account for more than 15% of the attendees (26,587 to be precise, according to the CES), so we thought we'd take a look at the latest innovations which we could be using in the year(s) ahead.

An increase of 9% attendance from between 2013 and 2015, points towards a trend and highlights the rising importance of digital platforms for engaging consumers. So much so that it lead AdAge to suggest that the “Future of CES Belongs to Marketers”.

"Digital isn't a destination. It's a foundation. What will differentiate you is understanding the data." @GinniRometty #CES2016

— CES (@CES) January 7, 2016

So, what can marketers learn from what's been happening in Las Vegas over the past couple of days? These are the biggest takeaways so far.

Screens, screens, screens, so many screens

Whether it be thin screens, big screens, tiny screens, connected screens, even flexible roll-up screens it appears the tech vendors are intent on improving screen quality and interaction.

Consumers spend on average 8 hours in front of these portals to the digital world, spread across an average 3 devices. This gives more opportunity to interact with your audience, however provides just as much noise leading to broken, misinterpreted or even lost messages.

This just means we need to up our game and make our messages more relevant, better integrated and more engaging!

Visual Search: What on earth is that?

Wenda Harris Millard, COO of Medialink suggested at the beginning of her interview with AdWeek the notion of Visual Search becoming a driving force in the world of search by 2020. If you want to find out a little more about visual search, David Amerland breaks it down for you very well indeed.

Although I feel the first step of Visual Search integrated with voice search has been taken by Google with the introduction in October 2015 of Google Now's "On Tap” to Android Marshmallow, it will be intriguing to see new services, which like Slyce, are likely to be driven by retail improvements.

Our Fridges can order things now

Samsung has released a fridge with a 21.5inch touchscreen in the door. Which is frankly, ridiculous. Deemed the family Hub Smart fridge, it allows you to stream music, access a calendar and shop for more groceries thanks to a teaming up with MasterCard.

In my eyes, it’s just a more comprehensive Amazon Dash button, which can let you play music whilst roaming through the kitchen.

The buzzword of the week is “Data-Driven Marketing”

Countless reports of CES reference “Data-Driven Marketing”, which, to be fair, isn’t the most horrendous buzzword I’ve ever heard and to be honest actually means something. Campaign quite rightly state – “this phrase describes a roadmap for how successful companies actually run their businesses. Data-driven marketing isn’t a buzzword pun; it’s really how we work.”

So why is it worth the mention in this round-up article? Basically it brings up the debate of Big Data vs Smart Data. If you want to find out a little more about Big Data and Smart Data, here's an interesting article discussing the differences.

Something Extra?

For more information about what is going on at CES, the Verge have done this superb coverage of the event.