As investment bankers providing M&A, capital raise, and strategic growth advisory services to entrepreneurial leaders inventing the digital future in emerging technology and media companies, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a tentpole event for Progress Partners. We had 8 bankers attend and over 130 meetings with companies in the media, marketing, advertising, retail and commerce sectors. We also led floor tours of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Both combined gave us ample and varied data sets from which to pull signals and themes.
As a reminder, CES is the largest technology trade show in the world. This year the show was 15% larger than last year with over 4000 exhibitors and 2.5M square feet of exhibit space. Attendance was around 130,000 people, with roughly a third of visitors coming from outside the United States. This is below its pre-pandemic peak of 170k attendees, but higher than last year’s 100k number.
Five Takeaways from Aria/Tech South
The Aria Hotel is the epicenter of content, creativity and technology convergence. It was where machers from advertising, content, entertainment and marketing transparently shared how their 2023 shaped up and what’s in store for 2024. Here are the 5 themes we pulled from the hundreds of conversations we had in a few short days:
- Measurement. Cross-device measurement is still a ways away
- CTV Monetization. Still experimenting, but long-tail will consolidate
- Retail Media. A need for a full product suite
- Identity. This is the year!
- Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). Key element for user engagement platforms