Transmission from CES: “CES Success” Has Two E’s

Walking around the convention floor here at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, I've seen hundreds of products hoping not only to make their ways onto local shelves, but into your home as well. So what makes a product compelling enough to get you to buy it, or even recommend it to friends and family?

As a Geek Squad Agent who helps clients set up their new technology in-home, I’m struck by two equally important factors that seem to create those successes: “engineering” and “emotional response.”

Engineering

While a product doesn’t have to be perfect to be a success, it does need to work well enough to accomplish the task it was purchased to perform. Of course, even tasks that may seem simple at first glance can require amazing amounts of engineering and design work before the product is considered for shipping.

Consider some of the new digital photo frames that can display photos sent to them via an email address unique to that individual frame. They have to be able to connect to a wide variety of home networks and internet broadband services. They have to be able to accept a number of image file formats, along with other unknown combinations, such as image quality and hidden file data. And the frame has to do this with a user interface simple enough to be operated by owners with wildly varying technical skill levels.

If a product isn’t produced with enough engineering care, it’s not going to function well enough for that customer checking it out in their local Best Buy to purchase it. Of course, that product is only “half-bought” at that point, because there’s the other factor to consider.

Emotional Response

Once someone has answered the question, “How would I use this product?” their next question is often, “Why would I use this product?” To use the example of that networked digital photo frame, one emotional response could come from the potential happiness they could create by giving the frame to their parents so they can remotely upload new photos of the grandchildren easily.

It’s that picture in that client’s head of how they will feel if they own a product, how it will impact their lives on an emotional level, that can quickly turn a potential purchase into an actual purchase. We are often, after all, creatures of emotion.