The first-ever Entertainment Matters keynote panel highlighted the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada last month.

The Entertainment Matters keynote panel, moderated by Michael Kassan, chairman and CEO of MediaLink, featured Akamai’s David Kenny, The Coca-Cola Company’s Joseph Tripodi, Interpublic Group’s Michael Roth, Microsoft’s Mich Mathews, and WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell.

The executives discussed the interconnection between technology and marketing, the need to leverage technology to build brand and engage customers, and the challenge of managing communities rather than exclusively pushing content. Kenny encouraged companies to develop technological strength because “…great innovation comes from companies that have depth.”

As the relationship between technology and the content community grows in significance, the new program, Entertainment Matters shows how important technology is to the entertainment community. And this magazine shows how important entertainment content is to technology marketers. Instead of pushing content, opt-in readers like you are actively pulling content to your computers, which is the antithesis of pushing spam out to an audience.

The 2011 CES brought top CEOs to the CES stage including Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg, Audi’s Rupert Stadler, Samsung’s Boo-Keun Yoon, Ford’s Alan Mulally, Netflix’s Reed Hastings, Cisco’s John Chambers, Xerox’s Ursula Burns and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt. These executives were joined onstage by leaders spanning various industries including Comcast’s Brian Roberts, Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt, Dreamworks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg and Hulu’s Jason Kilar.

The 2011 CES also featured government leaders from the U.S. and around the world including United States Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

The Consumer Electronics Association is a trade association promoting growth in the $186 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies are members that influence legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development, and the fostering of business and strategic relationships, especially for the b2b community. For more information, visit www.CE.org.

Bruce Wiebusch
bruce@entertainmentengineering.com

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