My spouse/business partner, Linda, and I attended CES 2026 in Las Vegas early January. We’ve been going for about 20 years. These are mostly my comments about the show since I’m the designated tech expert. (Linda is an architect so she likes weird things like building automation and smart homes.) This report is a bit late since I’ve spent the last week skiing in Utah and am writing this from my hotel in Salt Lake City while watching the NFL playoffs.
Background
I’ve been a marketing guy my whole career, save a brief stint in retail sales and as a department store buyer. I’ve developed branding, mission and image programs. Managed national sales. Run corporate trade show efforts. So, I’m always shocked when I attend a major trade show and constantly see companies wasting their time and money by ignoring their potential customers. Let’s start with my biggest pet peeve.
What does your company sell or do? I can’t tell.
Seriously. Your company has spent tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars on its exhibit and booth space. You’re paying employees to staff the booth. How about PR and pre-show advertising? You’d think making it easy to tell attendees what you do would be job #1 and basic to your show effort. Sadly, all too many companies try to be all things to all people and end up not being anything to anyone. The number of exhibitors at CES who don’t clearly communicate what they do or sell is legion. “THE FUTURE OF AI” “MAKING THINGS BETTER FOR THE WORLD”
I’ve walked by booths with huge banners proudly proclaiming everything except what they actually sell or make. I’ve actually walked up to a few and asked “So what do you do?” Usually the response is far more practical. “We design and make embedded controllers for building automation.” “We make software that integrates multiple AI platforms into a seamless environment.” OK, then why not say that?
Your mission statement or corporate vision is not your product or service!
I don’t care if management spent two months crafting the ultimate cool mission statement to define your corporate visions and long term goals. IT’S NOT YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE!!! So don’t feature it in your trade show booth branding. Even worse, don’t use it in your exhibitor directory listing. I always go through the CES exhibitor lists as part of my pre-show attendance planning. The CTA (Consumer Technology Association) only shows the first two lines from the company description unless you drill down on the company. So if your listing starts out “XYZ company is an industry leader in delivering added value to its customers by leveraging our diverse supply chains”, guess what? Unless the attendee already knows what you do, they’ll probably skip clicking on your listing to see what you actually do.
Here’s a prime example: A Chinese company obviously spent a fair amount of money on their booth AND they were giving away these cute little stuffed keychain critters with their corporate logo embroidered on the critter. Guess what? Here’s what they printed on the package for said critter: “Technology Pioneer Making Happy Future through Digital Innovation”. No website. No QR code. No products. Just a cute collectible with zero reference to what the company sells or does.
Chinese companies are horrible at trade shows
Most fall back on their mission statement as the “what they do”. Most never try to differentiate their products from the hundreds of other Shenzhen-based electronic whatchamacallit manufacturers. Many staff their booths with people who don’t speak English. I’ve walked into random booths and asked the simple question “What do you do?” as I’m looking at an array of toys, speakers, little robots, etc. I never get a straight answer. Instead, the nice booth person answers “we make most excellent product in Shenzhen” (bad English and all). Props to the Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Indonesian companies that by and large seem to have figured most of this out.
AI is not the product
Unless you’re Grok/X, OpenAI, Anthropic etc., you are not selling AI. If your product has AI-powered features, you have to clearly say to buyers and consumers exactly how the AI you’ve stuffed into your refrigerator or blender actually BENEFITS the buyer. I’m old school in one respect. Today’s marketing efforts are often too focused on brand awareness at the expense of how the product will actually help the consumer.
Yet, exhibitors at CES2026 were falling all over themselves with useless platitudes like “AI STARTS HERE” or “AI brings intelligence to <insert product here>”. Yawn. Give us specifics. I think the Korean giant, LG, actually does a reasonable job with explaining exactly how the intelligence in their major appliances actually helps the user.
Digital photography all but vanishes from CES
Last year, Panasonic, Sony, Nikon, Ricoh and Fujifilm all had full displays of their photography and videography products on display. Nikon was giving away great vinyl literature collection bags throughout the show. This year, the bag giveaway was sponsored by Insta360 (action camera maker with a major CES presence) but the aforementioned companies had no photo products on display. In fact, Nikon, Ricoh and Fuji pulled out of CES altogether. Somewhat picking up the slack were makers of videography and photography accessories such as gimbals (AI powered of course), lighting, podcasting and vlogging tools.
Kodak is the one company offering lots of cameras at CES but they are all targeted at the low end of the market. I asked one of their reps if Kodak would be bringing out anything with serious imaging or video capability and he diplomatically responded that they had some things in the works but were focused on their current lineup. It’s clear the mainline photo companies or divisions have decided to focus their resources elsewhere.
Some short takes – what’s hot
Smart watches continue to see growth with greater emphasis on GPS units. Brand to watch (pun intended) Amazfit/Zepp had two new models to show off. They’ve solved value and battery life problems in a big way. Vehicle automation continues to show interesting new products. 3D printing and laser etching products continue to advance and prices have come down while capabilities are increasing. Metal printers are now mainstream. And finally, CSpace at the Aria continues as the place where marketers, advertisers, media outlets and brand specialists sell to other marketers, advertisers, media outlets and brand specialists.
See you next year
Tom Geldner, Principal