Tens of thousands of industry professionals will descend on Las Vegas in January for the first in-person consumer electronics show in three years.
After an all-virtual show in 2021 and a scaled-down version last January, organizers expect this iteration of the tech industry’s biggest trade show to be a return to form with a footprint at least 70% larger. than last year’s show, which drew 45,000 people, more than 3,000 exhibitors and 2.1 million square feet of exhibit space.
The event’s programming will also broadly adhere to an overarching theme for the first time this year – “Human Security for All” – in partnership with the United Nations.
Here are some of the trends that could shape this year’s show.
Booming health and transport technologies
The show’s bread and butter are of course its futuristic gadgetry, which has included a growing number of electric vehicles, health-related devices and all sorts of smart devices in recent years. These trends are set to continue this year with an even wider range of mobility and transportation devices, including a demonstration of a real flying car, and a health tech industry supercharged by an increase in demand due to a pandemic, said Kinsey Fabrizio, senior vice president. CES memberships and sales to the Consumer Technology Association, the trade group that operates CES.
Even before the pandemic, CTA had made concerted efforts to lean more into health technologies like remote monitoring, telemedicine and wearable devices, a trend that the Covid-19 pandemic has only spurred. accelerate.
“Top healthcare industry leaders will be at CES this year,” Fabrizio said. “Moderna will be at CES – their CEO will be speaking – Teladoc will be at CES for the very first time.”
While fitness tech and electric vehicles aren’t a natural destination for marketers, new platforms are like that. in-car entertainment systems or home exercise programming could provide sponsorship opportunities.
Metaverse and NFTs will appear throughout the Exhibit Hall
Virtual reality and augmented reality devices will no doubt play a big role too with discussions of the metaverse expected to permeate every part of the show this year.
Besides the actual material, organizers say the show will rely heavily on all things metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), despite the recent turmoil in cryptocurrency markets, which makes some executives wary of anything related to Web3, the umbrella term for the technology that proponents say will constitute a new version of the Internet.
“Metaverse and web3 are a new theme for us,” Fabrizio said. It’s just going to be spread all over the living room. All sectors of CES and the tech industry are talking about it.
But the last bankruptcy of FTX and the subsequent crash of cryptocurrency markets could cast a shadow over that part of the event, though that controversy has little bearing on technology like the metaverse, according to Kassan. NFTs had also been experiencing booming sales for months before FTX collapsed as their initial wave of hype seemed to wear off.
Marketers currently seem to confuse FTX with blockchain and NFTs. People are just lumping it all together, like, ‘Oh, that’s all of it.’ And I don’t think that’s the case, obviously,” Kassan said. It’s going to be a distraction for the growth of this space, for now at least.
Retail media networks will have a greater presence
While viewers typically come to CES with one eye on the future, getting a glimpse of technology that could shape the world in a few years, the economic uncertainty looming in the new year may also cause marketers to limited budget towards practical technology that better serves a short-term bottom line.
“2022 was kind of about escapism…trying to find a new playground for all of us,” said Elav Horwitz, McCann Worldgroup’s senior vice president of global innovation and creative partnerships. “I think CES 2023 will be more about realism and realism.”
Topping the list are retail media networks, which are expected to have a bigger appearance in event publicity and media-focused C-Space this year. Walmart will have a much larger presence at this year’s show as it tries to bolster its Walmart Connect advertising arm, as will Amazon Ads.
“A big area of focus is this explosion of retail media,” said Michael Kassan, CEO of management consultancy MediaLink, known for its strong presence at CES. “Projections that 12% of media will be retail media spend with Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Target and all other retailers rightly see this as an area of huge growth potential.”
Economic uncertainty could dampen attendance
Experts say an expected slowdown in the first quarter of next year could also dampen footfall as travel budgets are likely to be restored for the first week after the holidays. This could make the presence more discreet for certain industries particularly affected by economic upheaval, such as advertising.
“I think people are looking at the situation and saying, ‘I’m going to have more choice in the trips that I choose, and a bunch of companies, especially in our industry, have not only frozen hiring, but the holders of trips to the in the last half of this year, and I think that probably trickles down a bit as well,” Kassan said.
Stay ahead of the streaming landscape
As the connected TV industry faces change this year with major streamers revamping their strategies, Netflix will appear as a major advertiser for the first time as the service attempts to relaunch its new ad-supported tier with speaking slots in C-Space. The advertising arm of Roku, Samsung and other device makers will also have big exposure at the show as they have.
Marketers will be looking for answers on how to stay ahead of streaming services’ latest moves in ad-supported video, like Disney Plus which is launching its own ad-based option, Kassan said. . “Everyone is going to look at the tea leaves out there and understand how brands are really going to survive and thrive in a streaming in a connected TV world.”
‘Human security’ will shape the show
Many of the activations and exhibits hosted by the brands in attendance will also have a sustainability or social good bent in line with the theme of the event this year. LG Electronics, a major player at the show every year, will highlight its sustainable development goals with an exhibition titled “Better Life for All”, and Samsung will showcase its vision for “Sustainable Innovations”.
“I found out that sustainability was going to be important this year,” Horwitz said. “I hope the innovations we see will be more practical, humanized and aimed at doing good in the world this year.”
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