Amid all the cool new tech at CES 2017, I noticed some products and trends for marketing in the New Year..
I just returned from CES 2017, courtesy of my friend, Richard Schneider, owner of Antennas Direct , and I left Las Vegas with a new sense of where not only technology, but digital marketing is headed.
Attending CES is one of my “bucket list” items so when the opportunity presented itself this year, I decided to go, I knew from researching past years, that CES was one of the biggest trade shows in Las Vegas, but I was not prepared for being surrounded by 160,000 people and over 5,000 exhibitor booths. The show floors, which spanned three venues, were much. much larger than I even imagined. Richard warned me that there would not be enough time to see everything, even walking the floors for 3 days straight, and he was right! If you ever have the opportunity to go yourself, I highly recommend you plan in advance of your visit so that you can see and experience the exhibits that interest you. Here are a few electronic gadget that will help you market in 2017.
Camera Drones for Content Creation
I have a personal aversion to selfie-sticks, especially when you are trying to create marketing video content. These sticks are fine for people on vacation trying to get everyone in the picture, but not for content marketing. Communication is about using a combination of voice, facial expressions, and your hands, so why handicap yourself by using one hand to hold the selfie stick? Two drones stuck out to me. The first was the Hover Camera Passport, which is billed as “Your Foldable, Self-Flying Personal Photographer.”
This is a cool marketing tool because it allows you to produce your own videos with needing a camera operator. Applications that immediately come to mind are realtors, tour guides, and reporters. The beauty of this little drone is that you can unfold it, power it on, and let it go, then it will immediately hover. It features advanced facial recognition so that it can follow you as you walk (or ride), and can be pre-programmed to 360 degree spin or to orbit you. Imagine the unique video shots you could take if you want to show the size and scope of the area around you!
The second drone is The ZEROTECH Dobby Pocket Drone, which bills itself as “A Selfie Drone that Fits and Folds into Your Pocket.”
The advantage is that it is smaller and less-expensive than the Hover Camera Passport, although it does not have blade guards, which will result in lost and broken blades. The feature that I liked best is that it folds up and fits into your pocket or purse, which is an advantage over the Hover Book Passport.
Voice Computing
Another technology that I saw baked into new products is Amazon Alexa, and to a lesser degree Google Home. Alexa will appear in the Ford Sync 3 enabled automobiles, refrigerators, connected light bulbs, and even the Martian Smartwatch. What does this mean for marketing? Future digital marketers will have to concern themselves with voice computing SEO, because machine learning devices will search the web!
Humans speak at 145 words per minute, yet only type 40 WPM, so you can see the obvious attraction of using voice computing. It will become more important than ever to optimize your marketing language to be efficient and straight-to-the-point. Future marketers will not have the luxury of paragraphs of “marketing language” to communicate their points. People will be asking their devices “What is the best product/service for …” and marketers will need to find a way to optimize their audio product descriptions to be the top product recommended. The era of this type of voice computing SEO is rapidly approaching.
Self-Driving Cars
One of the main themes for CES 2017 was self-driving cars, such as the Faraday Future FF91, which will radically change the time that consumers will spend surfing the web, and ultimately buying products and services.
I saw a video demo of the Faraday dropping the rider off at the front door of the hotel, then proceeding to drive through the parking lot until it found an open space, then executed a perfect three-point turn to park in the spot. This is the future of truly self-driving cars and a world where there won’t need to be a driver, just passengers. So what will passengers do with their time? If you’ve spent time watching people waiting for their flights at the airport, you have undoubtedly observed people listening to music (or podcasts), texting, watching video, or surfing the web. This is the same type of idle time that commuters will have in their cars, so it will make it more important for marketers to create engaging content to occupy their top-of-mind awareness.
When I returned from CES, I had a long conversation with Ann Marie about what this means for our clients and prospective clients. With our specialization in driving sales and helping companies communicate better, we can help our clients generate engaging content to increase their revenues and keep their products and services top-of-mind in this new world. The possibilities are limitless for PR, marketing communications and voice computing SEO!