What did we learn from CES 2017?

Jeff Tan, VP of Strategy, Posterscope

CES provides an exciting peek at how consumers will interact with technology and brands and a prophetic look into the future of marketing. Several themes of importance emerged.

Voice AI is here to stay

The huge volume of gadgets that offered integration with Amazon Alexa (including televisions, fridges and alarm clocks) showed that Amazon is clearly ahead in the voice-activated speaker market. We will witness the battle of the voice platforms including Google, Microsoft and the rumoured Apple assistant.

Brands will compete to be the first default recommendation in voice AI engines, e.g. asking for restaurants, coffee brands or movies to watch. A parallel with the early days of search engine marketing could lead to a resurgence in audio advertising via optimised suggestions and paid bidding for voice activated keywords.

Face and gesture recognition

An increasing number of technologies are specialising in facial and gesture tracking with enormous potential for marketers. Netatmo, an outdoor camera recognises people, cars and animals, and eyeSight, a gesture detection unit that allows the control of experiences via finger tracking and hand gestures.

Such technologies will lead to the retail store of the future, where retailers can detect what shoppers are looking at and understand their reaction to products. Shopping malls will be able to detect personality type better than a real human and direct shoppers, via digital OOH, to certain aspects within the mall. This will allow retailers to capture and analyse data, providing real-time personalised recommendations for products based on current emotions or actions.

Security, privacy and the issue of trust

Large-scale hacking in 2016 drew attention to privacy issues; Yahoo, Verizon, Dropbox, and even the Democratic National Committee were targeted. CES featured companies dedicated to security including Bit Defender Box, a network device that prevents hacking into connected home devices. Increased scrutiny of privacy is a good thing and needs to be taken seriously by marketers. Data protection should be revered at all costs; marketers need to respect the individual with the continued evolvement of data-driven, programmatic media.

Automation and the connected-everything

The old companies you thought you knew have transformed into smart-technology companies intent on making our lives easier via automating and connecting our utilities. The Panasonic smart kitchen features a digital kitchen wall with video recipes based on your refrigerator’s contents, while the Whirlpool Zera food recycler can produce 25lbs of compost a week. Connected cars also continued their dominance at CES with the breathtaking new Faraday, electric ride sharing Honda and Alexa-integrated Ford.

Taken individually, these trends are exciting. When combined, they’re mind blowing. CES gives a glimpse into the future of marketing; one of utility, automation and deep personalisation. For marketers it will no longer be acceptable to blast consumers with a one-size-fits-all approach; our role is to provide valuable interactions, hyper-relevant to the micro moments in consumers’ lives.

The future of marketing is exciting.

Joseph Worswick, head of sales, UK Media iQ

CES. That time of year when the biggest brands meet in Las Vegas for four days to show off their latest gadgets. But what’s immediately clear from this year’s show, is a change in focus; from gadgets to technology. And if brands want to stay ahead of the game, they’ll need to work out quickly how they are going to make the most out of these emerging technologies to entice consumers.

From smart hairbrushes to smart mattresses that help you get a better night’s sleep, CES has once again shown us how our relationship with the world around us is becoming increasingly connected. In turn this provides marketers with a vast amount of actionable data. So, if a bed is measuring how a person is sleeping, marketers can turn that data into intelligence to be able to target that person in more personalised ways.

Another hot topic of this year’s event, and to support the theme of connectivity, is the rise in 5G. In fact, during a keynote, Qualcomm CEO Stephen Mollenkopf claimed it will be as big as the arrival of electricity. He said “5G will be a new kind of network, supporting a vast diversity of devices with unprecedented scale, speed and complexity. 5G will have an impact like the introduction of electricity or the automobile, affecting entire economies and benefiting entire societies.”

So, what does that mean we could get? The answer, anything from live-streaming VR, to autonomous cars that respond to real-time conditions, and connected cities where everything from the houses to the street lamps talk to each other.

For advertisers, the dawn of 5G presents a phenomenal opportunity. And how, as consumers, we interact with these new, emerging digital experiences will fundamentally alter the ways advertisers can collect data to build highly-targeted consumer segments and, most importantly, reach more customers in an engaging and personalised way.

For example, a travel brand could use live-streaming VR to build a realistic representation of a consumer’s holiday destination or hotel to help them make their decision. From your living room or office, you could have a mini-experience with Angkor Wat or the Grand Canyon; you could move effortlessly from one location to the next, simply with a wave of your hand. Done right, advertisers could reap in the rewards.

Obviously, data-hungry advertisers have been exploring innovative data capture methods for some time. However, if CES 2017 has taught us anything, it’s that customers are becoming more comfortable with sharing highly-personal information, but only if it will make their lives easier. Whether this involves smart devices fitted around your house that can register sentiment or the rising number of voice-controlled smart devices for around the home, customers are craving technology that simplifies and organizes their everyday lives. With this in mind, the quality in software for connected devices has never been more important.

Going beyond wearable technology and connected devices, we should also expect to see a rise in connected clothing with sensory technology and smart fabrics. Kevin Plank, chief executive and founder of Under Armour, has cited that the brand is now moving beyond transactional data to be able to hit their consumers on a global point of sale and in mere minutes. Plank believes that 2017 is the year that they will embark on the true digitisation of the brand. By working with business technologists SAP, he believes there will come a time when some form of smart technology will be in all Under Armour’s products.

As we move into 2017 we can expect to see brands employing a far greater number of digitally immersive advertising experiences to engage with their customers and in a much more personalised manner. As with most new technologies, early adopters will be the biggest winners. But, ultimately customers will still have the final say on how much or when they choose to share their highly-prized and valuable information with the brands they trust.