Data Becomes CES Rising Star For Advertisers

• by Laurie Sullivan, Yesterday, 3:52 PM

New technology such as connected cars, connected watches and other connected devices doesn't always have marketing and advertising applications initially -- but as the applications mature, brands find the data more useful for better ad targeting across devices and media channels.

Most of these devices will focus on mobile tech.
With Apple Watch due out early this year, connected clothing will move from experimental use in skiwear to smart socks, tennis shoes to biometric running shirts. Sportswear manufacturer O'Neill Europe launched in Munich, Germany, its first wearable electronics product in 2004. The snowboard jacket made of smart fabric to withstand freezing and harsh environments was jointly designed and developed by Infineon Technologies AG to wirelessly connect the wearer to music.

CES attendance by marketer continues to increase. Audit summaries from 2013 and 2014 released by the Consumer Electronics Association, which produces CES, estimates that 5,315 advertising and marketing professionals attended the show in 2014, up nearly 9% from the prior year.
For marketers attending CES, understanding the technology means more than being the first to learn about how it works -- it's about  learning the technology that can help them get their messages into the minds of consumers.

Online advertisers won't see the influence of Nvidia's refocus (announced at CES) on semiconductor chips for automobiles and connected devices for a while. But the company's fame arose from developing some of the most sophisticated visual chips in graphic display cards. Announcing a new chip Sunday, Nvidia says it will provide double the performance of its past chips, and the first mobile chip to perform a trillion operations per second, or a teraflop of computing.

Brands will be thankful for that power as more cars, wearables and home gadgets -- like the thermostats that connect online through an IP address -- begin to expand options for ad targeting. Services from companies like Automatic will tell Google's home thermostat system from Nest Labs when you're driving home. Aside from Automatic, connections made visible through agreements between Nest and Philips and LG bring appliances into the mix. The goal is to give brains to the connected home -- all controlled by the car's system or mobile smartphone.