Day one of CES and the buzz is thick and fast on the ground. The first takeaway for brands? Your customers are poised to interact with devices and content in ways you’ve only seen in movies. Get ready, because Minority Report is coming to the majority.
Here are three key points from day one:
1) Nobody is consuming content on only one device. Multi-device integration for optimal content consumption is no longer optional. If your website only works on desktops and never met a mobile browser it couldn’t crash, you have an emergency on your hands. But that’s just the start. With at least 70% of tablet owners saying that they use their device while also watching TV, tying all these technologies together is crucial. The user experience needs to be seamless as you engage from screen to screen, device to device and platform to platform. (We’ll be talking about this at SXSW.)
2) The cloud will change how your customers consume content. When your TV, tablet, cell phone and desktop are all indexing what you watch, play and surf, that content can be presented to you in all kinds of new ways. In addition, with all your personalized content stored in the cloud, you not only can engage and interact with that content across multiple devices differently, you can also share and let your social circles engage and interact with that content. Distributed content computing is here.
3) Device control and content consumption is getting physical. Imagine your customer walking into their living room and saying, “Hey, TV” – and the TV turns on, recognizes the user’s face, and serves up a menu of their most-frequented webs, apps and games. Well, that’s here. In addition to motion, gestures and voice being integrated into device use and content, the device will also know who’s using it – much like Facebook knows who’s in your latest batch of photos. Siri may be gimmicky, but the new wave of smartly controlled hardware and software will make devices a natural extension of a person’s body.
For marketers and those interacting with customers through content – that is to say, everybody doing business on the planet earth – this shift means getting serious about the digital space sooner rather than later. A blog here and a Twitter account there is one thing, but ensuring a seamless, pleasurable (and non-frustrating) experience across platforms and devices is no longer a nice-to-have. Integration, optimization, and delivery of content are becoming compulsory. You can get ready now or later – and guess which one will make you a bigger profit.
On to day two…