Who’s Winning CES 2015?

Last month, my employer Text100 in association with our partners Redshift Research and Brandwatch undertook a comprehensive study to help brands make the most of their investments in CES. The study, which compared consumer needs with brand output raised several key findings. They included a conflict between brand and media use of Twitter and consumers’ use of this channel as a discovery mechanism, and significant disconnects between media interest and consumer desire.

Now that the 2015 International CES has kicked off, Phil Kam who leads Text100's data team and I took a look at related online conversations to understand who’s driving or, more critically, leading conversation, which brands are dominating discussion and which topics are capturing the imagination of your consumers.

Brand champions

Out of a quarter million online mentions tracked between January 5 and 6, Samsung dominated discussion with more than 16,000 mentions. It’s clear the range of announcements helped them lead overall buzz. However, disappointment in the fact that they weren’t releasing a new phone also contributed. LG was second with 13,000 mentions, mostly attributed to the G Flex 2 curved smartphone. Sony came in third with its Walkman ZX2 contributing to more than 10,600 mentions. Twitter accounted for 95 per cent of conversations, followed by Facebook (4 per cent) and online news (1 per cent).

Top Brands by Online Mention, CES 2015

Conversation drivers

While media outlets such as @CNET, @mashable, @USATODAY and @engadget dominated the top 10 in terms of online reach, it was interesting to note that individuals also drove online conversations. Of the 350,000 CES-related impressions tracked, rapper / songwriter / actor and philanthropist will.i.am (@iamwill) came second to @CNET in terms of impressions, undeniably aided by his more than 12.7 million followers. Mashable journalist Samantha Hey (tweeting as @HeySamantha) and the Wall Street Journal’s Geoffrey Fowler (@geoffreyfowler) also cracked the top 10, with Fowler outpacing the @WSJD tech handle by more than 17 million impressions.

Top Media / Authors Ranked by Impressions, CES 2015

Products you want

And now, where the rubber meets the road. The top five products so far at CES are dominated by Lenovo (disclosure, Text100 is Lenovo’s agency of record) with ‘ThinkPad’ and ‘ThinkPad Stack’ coming in first and fifth respectively in terms of overall mentions. Apple Watch comes in second - which is significant as Apple didn’t make any CES announcements, nor is the company participating in the show. Netflix – both a product and brand – came in fourth with 2,500 mentions over the past two days. While in previous years, the talk was all about tablets and wearables, TV and PCs seem to be making a comeback.

Top Products by Online Mention, CES 2015

Methodology: Text100 used Brandwatch to monitor online news, Twitter, Facebook and discussion forums between January 5 and 6, 2015. We tracked and analyzed more than 250,000 US CES mentions over this period. 

A version of this post appeared on Text100's HyperText blog on 7 January 2015