CES Musings | Takeaways from Vegas 2023
My trip to the Consumer Electronics Show (“CES”) was excellent. Below is a summary of the CES experience, the people, and a performance marketing takeaway. I would have written sooner but got swept up in agency & family life.
On The Way to CES
I experienced innovation - but not a good one. There is a lot change in the world; the grave pandemics, war, and divisiveness; the commercial AI natural language processing, startups, and currency; and the more trivial, but quite frustrating diffusion of price discrimination. Travel has always been notoriously bad in this respect; but, it’s gone to the next level. Carry on baggage is no longer included in “normal” fares on major airlines. The weirdest case was my Vegas hotel off Main Street, upsold a higher floor for a desk with power and USB outlets, and even weirder, a quieter alternative to three cover bands jamming right outside my “noise proof” window while I go to sleep. I guess it was no surprise to hear about a Junk Fees initiative out of DC.
The CES Experience
I had expected innovation to be the star of the show. However, the main attraction was actually the commercialization of previous innovation.
Standards, Maybe?
There was a thread of how standards are being set, or not. IoT sensors are ubiquitous in electronics like Bosch whose entire product suite is its tribute,
Samsung’s history of IoT,
and non-electronics like Chipolo.
There were almost 200 metaverse exhibitors, presenting almost as many discrete metaverses. If a tree falls in one metaverse, does anyone in other metaverses hear it?
Products or Display or Art?
There was an “art” thread where exhibitor displays are, or are more impressive than, the technology. Hordes of people entered the Las Vegas Conference Center exhibition hall through the LG’s arch of curved OLED displays on the way to LG’s color-changing fridges for kitchens of the future.
Walking by audio exhibitors was a color changing frenzy, like all the speakers were trying to communicate with me.
While the Las Vegas Convention Center had the consumer electronics titans like Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, Amazon, and Google to name a few, the Venetian Convention Center had emerging companies vying to be future titans or at least be acquired by them.
One such company was Worx which featured its Landroid autonomous lawn mower that not only cuts grass but also navigates back to its dock for charging and storage. Even more surprising than the technology was the booth, on the same large scale as the Las Vegas Convention Center, and adorning its exhibitor “booth” wall with tiled, spray painted Landroids.
Art has a powerful message. And Rollo shipping did just that, “sticking it to the man”, with its ode to Jeff Bezos.
Rethinking Categories
Technology has enabled entrepreneurs to rethink previously traditional categories.
Pods changed coffee forever. And now capsules will change cocktails forever, courtesy of startup Bartesian. It’s a new way to cocktail, with over 50 cocktails and growing. Hosting parties and happy hours just got much easier; guests can serve themselves whatever cocktail they’d like. Full disclosure, Bartesian is a Growth Marketing Advisors client. But I’ve tried the cocktails - they’re delicious!
Smart oven startup Brava created its own coding language, Bravascript, to enable custom cooking of discrete items simultaneously in one oven; so compelling was it (hope you appreciate the Yoda grammar) that a professional chef to become its VP of Sales and Marketing, turning a skeptic into a believer; he also happens to be a down-to-earth musician dad who actually has work-life balance - right on.
Plant-based milk startup NuMilk got its break on Shark Tank; exciting to think how something as basic as milk can be re-invented, easier to transport, digest, flavor, be healthy, and just plain easier; and like most CES participants, has a vision to change the world.
Startup Clevermove has built technology for next-level phone video conferencing. This engineering powerhouse blends the expertise for software, hardware, and AI to deliver a unified product experience that is very timely given the world’s significant adoption of remote working accelerated by the pandemic. Its Kickstarter is launching soon.
Pragmatic Differentiation
While the race-to-the-bottom pricing accelerates on Amazon, especially in categories like device accessories, it is in this same category that CES participants are bucking the trend via pragmatic differentiation.
RollingSquare has re-thought accessories with incredibly thoughtful, minimalist product design.
Customer-centric Nexigo offers more video camera configurations that require more costly operations but deliver actual customer needs more precisely.
And then Cygnett which delivers high quality accessories, like power banks, backed by long-duration warranties to show conviction in its product development philosophy. Its marketing centers on NoMoPhobia, a psychological condition when people have a fear of being detached from mobile phone connectivity - how brilliant; I suffered from an acute case of NoMoPhobia when my mobile phone battery life got dangerously low on the final day of CES. Was grateful to be diagnosed by the talented senior salesperson manning the Cygnett booth. I may have bought a power bank from them.
As a dad, was nice to see ONANOFF safe headphones for kids that offer so many fun character options that should cover just about any child’s favorite. As an entrepreneur, was also great to hear the founder recount tales of previous CES shows back to when it was founded many years ago and his booth and product selection were much more modest. From the very beginning to now, he works really hard - much respect.
Chinese Prominence
There was an enormous international contingent of exhibitors, Chinese being the largest. So many signs said Shenzhen, it seemed like a large portion of the city moved to Vegas for CES.
And while there were a lot of manufacturing and white label specialists in attendance, there were also consumer-facing innovators. Personal assistant robots were an area of distinction with companies like Enabot and Moorebot.
The Best Part of CES, The People
After the video conferencing “new normal” of Pandemic life, CES’ in real life experience was a true delight. Colleagues and friends from all over the world converged on Vegas; so, it was easy to have reunions “at scale”. A few of the highlights are below.
One of my favorite clients, Bartesian, was at CES with its strategic partner Hamilton Beach. Bartesian has been winning CES innovation awards for years; and this year was no different, winning awards for two of its new products. I started agencies to do the work that I love - creating products and marketing technology that support them - while being present (and their uber driver) with my children during the precious years when they’re at home with me and my wife. What I didn’t realize is that agencies are a means of finding the best colleagues ever. The only people I’ve met with an entrepreneurial, innovative, and results-driven spirit that matches and potentially exceeds Growth Marketing Advisors is Bartesian’s leadership. But even more importantly, they’re just good people who I genuinely enjoy spending time with. Despite being exhausted after a long day, I pulled myself together and took a Lyft to the Wynn to meet up with them. Ryan, Neil, and I had an amazing time listening to Billy Joel piano covers, drinking cocktails, and discussing everything but the kitchen sink.
I attended a CES party on the Las Vegas Convention Center terrace with Mehul Gandhi, who is a talented entrepreneur, and also husband of Laxmi Gandhi who is a favorite of mine from Brandeis University, my alma mater. These two are a power couple. They’re both founders. Don’t know whose startup will attain unicorn status first; I’m not betting against either. While enjoying our food & drink, we were discussing whether founders need to “step on” others to “win”, commenting how we don’t hear news stories about successful entrepreneurs who followed a different path which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not happening. We discussed starting a podcast on this and both lacking the time to do so. We also had a sidebar with CES’ head of research to discuss innovation in healthcare which is unfortunately more of an exercise in politics than science.
To round out the experiences, I met up with agency friends old and new at The Cosmo. Serial Marketer’s David Berkowitz and The Winders Group’s Tony Winders. We covered life, wellness, our sales processes, and lots more. David talks about CES having a shadow conference for the agencies that serve brands; and that was formalized with The Aria dedicated space for agencies.
Performance Marketer Reflections on CES
After speaking to dozens of merchants throughout the conference, the emerging theme was the decline in performance of social media platforms like Meta as well as the visibility to and discussion of true results. They lamented about how Meta used to deliver strong results prior to the iOS privacy changes but not having recovered from that timeframe. They expressed frustration over in-depth discussions about clicks and engagement rather than core KPIs like revenue.
Complementing this theme were agency sessions full of programmatic and retail media. CPMs for programmatic especially on Connected TV (“CTV”) are extremely high due to markups throughout the ad tech supply chain. Retail media is measurable but also lower funnel, similar to paid search, raising the age old question of incrementality. These two factors place a great deal of pressure on merchant economics.
Programmatic and Retail Media have been around for over a decade. That these are trending now shows the slow adoption curve for large agencies and corporations. What’s also evident is that using the trending tactics is popular but not necessarily what’s best for the merchant. In one session’s impromptu poll of the top agencies, nearly 100% raised their hands for using programmatic & retail media while nearly 0% raised their hands for using linear cable, a more cost-effective channel.
When speaking with merchants, I shared the Growth Marketing Advisors’ weekly meeting ritual where advertising is presented in the context of the core KPIs - like revenue, LTV, new customers, CPA, and ROAS - where we celebrate strong performance or feel the heat when its not - visible for all to see, nowhere to hide. This direct, candid collaboration yields the best results because it’s inevitable to face performance pressure from external, company, and agency factors but the manner and speed in which it’s recognized and addressed that has the greatest impact.
That's a Wrap
Huge thank you to everyone who made my CES so special - look forward to seeing you all again soon!
