Tag Archive: CES

1. The future is here: Samsung at CES 2020

   January 13, 2020 19:41 Comments Off on The future is here: Samsung at CES 2020

   It’s called the Consumer Electronics Show, but really, CES is a showcase of the future. Over three days across Las Vegas, attendees are shown how tech will create a strange, beautiful new world. Each year there is normally one brand that garners a lot of attention for its innovation and vision: this year it was Samsung, that most future-facing of organisations.

   Samsung launches #TheAgeofExperience

   So what better way to kick of this year’s show than with a keynote from the Korean tech giant? The President and CEO of the Korean tech giant’s consumer electronics division, Hyun-Suk Kim, took to the stage in front of an audience of thousands of delegates on Monday evening to explain Samsung’s vision for the future. That vision has the consumer very firmly at its heart, and ushers in ‘the age of experience’. In a world where 74% of us value experiences over products, Samsung has set out to provide consumers with meaningful experiences and memorable moments through the seamless use of innovative, unobtrusive technology.

   Help in the home

   H.S. Kim and some of his colleagues took delegates on a journey to show them how Samsung innovation will create these meaningful experiences for ourselves, in the home and in cities. We were introduced to Ballie, a small, spherical robot that understands you, supports you and reacts to your needs so that it can help you around the home. It can follow you around the home (without getting in the way) and can even help you look after your pets and instruct robot vacuum cleaners to clean dirty floors!

   A personal fitness assistant for all

   Another way in which Samsung has harnessed AI to support personal care is its fitness assistant, which pairs the existing GEMS outfit with other devices such as AI glasses and a smart watch to help users meet their health and fitness goals. GEMS and AI glasses can also be used to help people with disabilities to move and see, reinforcing Samsung’s promise to enhance people’s lives.

   The home as a living organism

   The GEMS demo showcased how the blurring of the physical and online worlds is allowing homes to act as other spaces too, including fitness studios, art studios and entertainment spaces. The home is becoming a living organism, an intelligent and deeply personal space that tailors experiences to our individual needs. Smart kitchens will be nutritionists, chefs and shopping assistants, giving meal recommendations based on your workout and what is in your fridge, putting missing items on a shopping list and even recommending wine pairings. Another exciting innovation revealed was the cooking assistant ‘Chef Bot’, a large pair of arms suspended over the kitchen worktop which can help you to whip up a meal.

   Building the smart cities of the future

   Samsung’s innovations demonstrate how the internet of things is expanding to make our lives easier in a personalised, non-intrusive way. But it is also growing its reach beyond the home and into the cities that so many of us inhabit. A key challenge facing us in the future is the rise of megacities (cities of more than 10 million people): it is predicted that by 2050, 70% of the global population will live in cities, with 42 megacities. This poses questions around how housing provision and transport will cope: and this is another area in which Samsung is finding smart ways to converge technology, building the cities of the future. Building structures will sense when there is a fault and send an alert before it becomes a problem, while residents will be able to manage deliveries, energy and other services with a simple voice command. Meanwhile, 5G vehicles such as the Digital Cockpit will communicate with one another and the passengers’ personal infrastructure for seamless, safe and clean transportation.

   Prioritising data privacy and security

   Of course, smart technology which so fundamentally affects and enhances our lives will require a huge amount of data, which Samsung will need to harness in order to ensure that its products deliver on their promises. H.S. Kim underlined the company’s commitment to data security and personal privacy, emphasising that they will be a top priority as technology advances and that customers will always have control over their information.

   Experiencing the future

   After Samsung’s keynote many in the audience were eager to visit Samsung’s space on the show floor and it didn’t disappoint. In their huge space we were treated to futuristic demos from the Chef Bot, Ballie and Bot Air, which cleans the air in your home, and witnessed a simulated demo of Digital Cockpit, which uses 5G to link features both inside and outside the vehicle, and provide connected experiences for driver and passengers. Dominating one end of the Samsung space was The Wall, a modular ‘as-big-as-you-want’ MicroLED screen – the iteration they had on display was a huge 7.4m (292 inches), and the colour, contrast and quality are mind-blowing.

   The GEMS exo-skeleton was also on display, as were a huge array of connected living devices and of course the high-quality laptops, tablets, smartphones and TVs that Samsung is so well known for.

   A bold vision for the future

   Samsung clearly feels huge responsibility: to provide meaningful experiences and memorable moments for consumers, to protect their data whilst making their lives better, to ensure that tech is a force for good, and to educate the next generation of innovators. It’s a big task but they are well positioned to deliver on it all, and more. The future is a strange place: Samsung’s innovations make it even stranger but also reassuring: technology will ensure that our lives run more smoothly and more healthily so that we can focus on what’s important. As H.S. Kim said in his concluding words, Samsung will dream big and defy barriers with people at the centre, for a better today and tomorrow. What could be more exciting than that?

   Image: Alex Matthews

2. Insights from day 2 of CES 2020

   January 9, 2020 20:34 Comments Off on Insights from day 2 of CES 2020

   The momentum doesn’t slow for a second at CES! On day 2 in Las Vegas we were treated to a smorgasbord of innovation – some ready-to-go, some just conceptual, but almost all are exciting and will transform how we as consumers go about our everyday lives.

   Hollywood meets Silicon Valley – but will it work?

   We started the day by attending one of CES’ flagship corporate keynotes. This one was from Jeffrey Katzenberg, former Disney Chairman and founder of Dreamworks, and Meg Whitman, former President and CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard. They were unveiling Quibi, their mobile entertainment platform which they have positioned as the sweetspot where Hollywood meets Silicon Valley; they underlined the collaborative aspect of the creative process, where content creators and engineers work hand-in-hand right from the start to drive innovation. Quibi offers viewers a ‘revolutionary’ video-streaming technology that delivers portrait and landscape video at the same time, and allows creators to take advantage of other mobile capabilities such as GPRS, time, camera and interactivity. All content is in ‘quick bites’ (hence ‘Quibi’) of 10 minutes or less – so that it can be consumed in those historically hard-to-reach moments on the go. This means super-short series episodes and splitting movies into ‘chapters’.

   A lot of emphasis was placed on the opportunities that this platform represents for advertisers, especially the fact that it specifically targets the hard-to-reach millennial generation at a time when they are particularly hard to reach – on the go. Their low ad-load will also no doubt appeal to ad-weary generation Y. Quibi’s first-year advertising inventory, worth $150m, has sold out and they have many world-famous brands on their client roster, including AB InBev, Procter & Gamble, T-Mobile and PepsiCo; the latter was invited on stage to talk about the innovative, collaborative creative process and the brand-safe, brand appropriate environment.

   Quibi is undoubtedly an innovative new streaming platform and the idea of creating short-form video content for the on-the-go generation is a good one, but some questions remain. In the age of the streaming wars, how will this young start-up fare against established competitors such as Disney, Netflix and Warner? And will viewers really want to keep flipping their phones while they are watching a show to get the full Quibi experience? Furthermore, with content costing on average $100,000 a minute to produce and with plans to deliver a huge amount of content, is the business model sustainable? Quibi launches in April – after that, time will tell.

   A dose of futuristic technology

   After Quibi’s talk we made our way up the Strip to the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the world’s leading future-facing brands showcase their innovations. The Center is mind-bogglingly huge with the footprint of many exhibitors’ ‘stalls’ matching that of a mansion. We made a beeline for Samsung’s space, eager to see for ourselves the products that they revealed in their keynote speech. There’s so much to say about Samsung’s contribution to CES that we will be posting a separate blog about it tomorrow, but suffice to say that their space was seriously futuristic and shakes up what the future of the home, the city and even of you (and me, and all of us) looks like.

   It’s all about screens

   Screens were a big area of innovation. Our eyes were drawn by LG’s undulating display of their OLED screens – and as we entered the LG space we were shown just how slender these screens are. There was also a roll down screen on display – similar to the roll-up screen showcased a few years ago and which is now available to buy. Meanwhile, Samsung displayed its enormous MicroLED screen called ‘The Wall’. MicroLED technology allows screens to be built at any size, and The Wall is truly huge, at 292 inches or 7.4m. Its sheer scale and extreme brightness and contrast meant that it was truly a sight to behold!

   Flexible screens were another big talking point. Intel showcased its conceptual 17-inch foldable screen which works as a laptop or monitor, while Lenovo unveiled the ThinkPad X1 Fold. It seems inevitable that foldable screens will become far more commonplace over the next few years.

   Tomorrow: Samsung deep dive

   We’ll be posting a deeper dive into Samsung’s presence at CES tomorrow, including their keynote and seeing their innovations in action on the show floor. In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss anything at CES and how it affects marketers, please contact us on value@ecimm.com

   Image: Alex Matthews

3. Insights from day 1 of CES 2020

   01:33 Comments Off on Insights from day 1 of CES 2020

   Las Vegas, early January: it must be time for CES, time for 180,000 delegates to discover, quite literally, what the future holds. Alongside the famous show floor, where delegates can enjoy futuristic product demos from brands as diverse as Samsung, Nikon and Impossible Foods, there is a dazzling array of talks and discussions on a wide range of topics, from smart cities to health and fitness.

   We spent our first day on the ‘Future of TV’ tract, a series of panel discussions and talks featuring brands, agencies and TV experts discussing what the future holds for TV, and what that means for advertisers.

   A mantra for the new decade: progress before perfection

   The day started with a session on ‘The New Frontier of Television’, with the Editor of Forbes’ CMO Network, Jenny Rooney, interviewing Deborah Wahl, Global CMO of General Motors, about what developments in TV mean for her brand. Deborah talked about how GM has reaped huge benefits from the rapidly changing TV landscape – their effectiveness has increased by 10% over just three month – and how they are embracing the change by getting their teams comfortable with learning and failing. She noted – as have many over the week – that failure is inevitable, but that’s ok. If everything you do is working all the time, then you’re not doing enough, because there’s so much out there to play with. Deborah’s mantra epitomises this mindset: progress before perfection.

   Deborah also discussed how excited she is about the future of TV and how the huge amount of data available to advertisers now is helping creativity to become scientific. It’s delivering faster, better, more measurable results so that creative can be customised in almost real-time, creating content that is better for consumers – and therefore better for brands.

   When CTV effectiveness is fully measurable and provable, ad dollars will shift quickly

   Next up was a panel featuring Lynn Blashford of White Castle, Gustavo Alvarado of Activision and PepsiCo’s Kate Brady, facilitated by Innovid’s Stephanie Geno. The group discussed scaling success in connected TV (CTV), and started out by discussing what is holding brands back from CTV: it receives just 3% of media investment in the US, despite accounting for 30% of media consumption. The key reasons given were measurement, high CPMs, a lack of inventory and proven models from linear TV: investment in tradition TV has always led to an increase in sales, and it’s difficult to take money away from something that is proven to work. Brands are still looking for ways to illustrate success as clearly and quickly for digital devices and CTV so they can start shifting significant ad dollars to these platforms.

   Kate Brady mentioned how her ultimate goal is to harness data from CTV to optimise activity on a weekly basis – and ideally even more frequently – ‘the more data we can have, and the better we can optimise, the more it will help us’. She emphasised the importance of using data to work out what resonates with one customer versus another, so that personalisation can drive brand love as well as ROI. Meanwhile, Gustavo Alvarado discussed how direct response hasn’t been a focus on how we buy TV, but the opportunity to ‘add to cart’ direct from a CTV ad would be a really exciting development for advertisers. However – he said that whatever the future holds, it must be measurable. Measurement is key.

   What do the streaming wars mean for CMOs?

   With the launch or imminent launch of streaming platforms from Disney, Apple, NBC and Warner, we were particularly excited about the next session, about what the streaming wars mean for CMOs. Innovid’s Tal Chalozin interviewed Rich Greenfield from LightShed Partners about how CMOs can best navigate this new landscape. Rich noted how numbers for live TV are down by double digit percentages, and even when we do watch live TV we are not as engaged as we used to be, particularly during ad breaks. That’s true even for live sport, the saving grace of linear TV. This is partly because the ad experience on traditional TV is not nearly as engaging for viewers as it is on, say, Instagram. TV advertising has not kept up with the internet and isn’t customisable or shareable. He went on to discuss how expensive channel bundles are and how they force consumers to pay for channels they are not interested in. This, combined with a frequently heavy ad load, sends consumers straight into the embrace of the streaming platforms which are cheaper, offer content that they actually want to watch, and allow them to watch it seamlessly across devices.

   An interesting point that Rob raised was the fact that wealthier consumers are now effectively able to buy themselves out of advertising – so how do we reach them? The obvious answer is live sport, but there simply isn’t enough to satisfy the demand of the many brands for whom wealthier demographics are their target audience. It’s a question that has yet to be answered, but integration may be part of the solution.

   Moving from creating ads to curating experiences

   Next to take to the stage was the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard, Raja Rajamannar, in discussion with Innovid’s Beth-Ann Eason about Mastercard’s new approach to marketing. Raja started by emphasising that Mastercard now looks at consumers as people, for whom consumption is just a small part of their lives. What happens outside of that consumption – how they live their lives, their values, their passions – informs how and what they consume. People are bored of ads and care more about experiences than things, so Mastercard’s marketing strategy focuses on ‘nothing but curating experiences’, targeted in a highly effective way. Raja’s team divided people’s lives into 10 different passion points, such as music and food, and curated multi-sensory experiences at scale, with seamless and non-intrusive integration of the Mastercard brand. These experiences engage people completely and make them want to tell and spread the story of that experience – word of mouth for the 21^st century. This strategy and razor focus on experience has helped Mastercard to move from number 87 to number 12 in Kantar’s ranking of the top 100 most valuable brands, and to be named Interbrand’s fastest growing brand across all categories.

   The future of linear TV in the US relies on NFL

   Innovid’s ‘Future of TV’ tract was wrapped up by Luma’s inimitable Terry Kawaja, who took us on a rip-roaring ride through the stream wars and the future of TV. He pointed out that the streaming wars have created Nirvana for customers, who have more choice at less cost, and that the future for linear television in the US essentially rests in the hands of NFL. NFL contracts are up in the next few years, and the big tech companies such as Amazon are getting ready to swoop – Jeff Bezos himself has said that Amazon wants to use live sports to drive value for prime customers. The big problem for the linear TV companies? Those big tech companies have a lot more money, and global reach. In order to defend themselves, the broadcast networks are turning to scale consolidation, direct OTT distribution and CTV tech acquisition – but they need to do it quickly.

   There are few losers in the future of TV

   One of our favourite slides of the day was one that we shared on our LinkedIn page here. In it, Terry showed his audience the winners and losers of the streaming wars. For agencies, tech intermediaries, big tech, content creators and consumers the streaming wars are undoubtedly great news, while for media distributors it is less positive. Terry believed that for brands it could go either way, but in a subsequent panel discussion that he hosted with brand CMOs and TV experts, he revised his opinion and decreed that the age of streaming was in fact a great opportunity for brands!

   An opportunity to bundle streaming service packages

   Another key takeaway from Terry’s talk was his prediction that the myriad options available to consumers would in time open up an opportunity for an independent third party to re-aggregate the streaming platforms, bundling up their services in order to make them more manageable – and more affordable – for consumers. His prediction for who that third party could be? Apple – who could well want to position themselves at the top of the TV ‘waterfall’ in the same way that Amazon is for shopping and Google is for search.

   More insights from #CES2020 tomorrow

   Day one at CES was an incredible opportunity to hear from experts about their vision and predictions for the future of TV: if you would like to discuss anything you have read here in more depth with our experts then please get in touch. In tomorrow’s blog we’ll be covering the keynote from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman on their new mobile entertainment platform, Quibi, and bringing insights and innovation from the CES show floor.

   Image: Alex Matthews