CES Highlight #1: Smart TVs

The number of new consumer electronics products on display at this year’s CES is overwhelming so I’m not going to attempt to cover them all. Instead, I’ll share three categories that I believe are most important to marketers. I’ll start with smart TVs.

A number of announcements were made by Samsung, Sharp, LG,Panasonic and others. The TVs are getting bigger (85 – 90 inches), the pictures are getting better (eight times clearer in the case of Ultra HD) and, most important, the TVs are getting smarter.

Take Samsung’s Smart TVs as an example. One model uses a quad-core processor to drive its Smart Hub and the applications developed specifically for the television, including Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Skype and Pandora. Having content streamed from the Internet directly to the TV is altering viewing habits. Instead of being dependent on shows from cable networks, viewers can select from movies, custom-produced content on YouTube or Vimeo, or shows produced in foreign markets. While many of these capabilities are available today through Roku or Apple TV, Samsung’s S-recommendation engine takes natural language input to suggest content that meets your defined criteria. No longer is content browsing limited to the cable guide or Netflix suggestion list.

With social media and Web-based content apps native to the TV, marketers now must begin thinking about a fourth screen in addition to PCs, tablets and smart phones. Advertising networks similar to those for PC and mobile display advertising will soon emerge. Pre-roll ads will be viewable on large-format displays. Brand integration into games will be more common. And brand-sponsored content will potentially evolve (or revolve) to complete video programming or brand-specific gaming. Brands like Red Bull are currently set up well to exploit these evolving capabilities.

The living room television has long been the center of household content viewing, and with more capable smart TVs content will shift from broadcast programming to viewing that is more interactive. The question will remain whether marketers will know how to evolve as well.