Live from CES 2026 with Tracy Locke’s Curt Munk

Summary

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The CPG Guys: Live from CES 2026 with Tracy Locke’s Curt Munk

Release Date: January 31, 2026
Hosts: Peter V.S. Bond (PVSB) & Sri Rajagopalan
Guest: Curt Munk, Head of Sales & Strategy, Tracy Locke (Omnicom/Flywheel Commerce Network)
Location: Recorded at Omnicom’s podcast studio, Cosmopolitan Hotel, Las Vegas

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This episode captures the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas through the eyes of Curt Munk—a retail and commerce strategy expert renowned for curating tours that reveal the most innovative and commercially relevant tech on the show floor. Hosts Peter and Curt dive into standout trends, especially in health and food technology, and explore the evolving nature of CES, practical innovation, and what consumer brands should be paying attention to for future growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Structure & Focus of CES (04:23–05:42)

• Diversification of CES Floors:
  • The Venetian hosts practical consumer tech—health, food, home appliances—while the Las Vegas Convention Center focuses on TVs, gaming, and traditional electronics.
  • Curt notes: “The Venetian… has been a lot of health technology, food technology, maybe more practical consumer use technology… as opposed to televisions and gaming” (04:53).
• International Flair & Brand Curation:
  • Increasingly, brands from Asia and Europe dominate, many unfamiliar to North American audiences.
  • National groups (e.g., “French Tech”) exhibit coordinated branding and support for their startups, offering a glimpse into regional innovation ecosystems.

2. Preparing for CES as a Curator (05:51–09:25)

• Challenge of Mapping the Floor:
  • With new brands, little PR, and shifting show-floor arrangements, Curt invests significant effort each year to identify what’s retail-relevant.
• Eureka Park:
  • Explained as the “basement” where early-startup innovation happens, with country-based organization and a pecking order for advancement:
    “First technologies develop in Eureka park … The next year … they move to the first floor of the Venetian. And then after two or three years...” (07:37).

3. What Makes a CES Booth Effective? (12:08–13:25)

• Physicality Matters:
  • “You have to have a physical thing. Right. Because so much technology is now... you can't just show a video of something.” (12:29)
• Pre-show PR Essential:
  • Pre-CES buzz and teasers—through the Consumer Technology Association and other means—are crucial to drive booth traffic.

4. Thematic Innovations at CES 2026

a. Age Tech: From Monitoring to Empowerment (13:58–17:43)

• Beyond Wearables:
  • Devices now do more than alert caregivers; they actively empower users (e.g., exoskeletons enabling mobility, AI-assisted learning opportunities for seniors).
  • “Now with AI, there’s the expectation of… learn new things, get a new degree in your 70s… embracing the optimism of age.” (15:38)
• Tech for Workforce & Healthcare:
  • Exoskeletons are not just for the elderly—they support fields like baggage handling (Delta Airlines), improving workplace safety and efficiency.
  • Demo story: “She was picking up 200-pound bags and flipping into what I can only describe as a basketball net easier than he could get the thing off.” (18:28)

b. Health Tech: Moving to Integrated, Personalized Care (19:22–20:48)

• Beyond Passive Devices:
  • “Mirror” devices that scan your physiology, mood, and health data every morning.
  • Longitudinal tracking: similar to OURA rings—devices collect, interpret, and nudge users for preventive care.
  • Curt: “It’s making all sorts of really interesting health judgments about you in seconds.” (19:27)

c. Food Tech: From Air Fryers to All-in-One, Connected Appliances (21:05–29:13)

• Evolution of Smart Appliances:
  • “All-in-one” cooking machines now deliver advanced meal prep: users dump in ingredients, input goals, and machines execute cooking to perfection—connected to delivery and shopping ecosystems (e.g., orders ingredients automatically via Instacart or Amazon Fresh).
  • Example: “Brisket… does all of the food preparation and the thawing and the seasoning and the warming, and it is connected to your ordering infrastructure.” (11:48)
• Brand Integration Gaps:
  • Despite tech advances, there’s limited direct integration between CPG brands and these devices; most brands are hesitant due to uncertain technology adoption.
  • “CES is missing… the brand integration into the technology store. I can say that almost full stop.” (31:18)

5. The Value of Serendipity & On-Site Learning (25:55–27:21)

• Most Innovations Can’t Be Pre-Researched:
  • 80% of CES insights come from discovery and industry conversations onsite, not pre-show planning.
  • Example: RZA from Wu-Tang Clan discussed AI removing resource constraints from music creation—analogous to how brands/creatives can now ideate with fewer limits.

6. CES 2026: Logical Evolution, Not Revolutionary (34:05–37:36)

• Trends Mature, Less Spectacle:
  • Curt’s perspective: “CES is growing up and getting a little bit more practical this year.” (34:42)
  • Practical problem-solving is in; fewer “vanity” innovations.
  • AI is deeply embedded but not always as visible as hardware leaps of previous years.

7. Advice for Brands & Attendees (35:36–40:44)

• Who Should Be at CES?
  • “Anyone that touches or is responsible for a consumer or shopper experience at some point along the journey… creative, digital, social.” (35:36)
• Leadership & Curiosity:
  • Strong warning against complacency: if C-suite leaders lack curiosity or outsources it entirely, they’re at risk of falling behind.
  • “Outsourcing curiosity to an agency or a third party anyway... can supplement your team. But that curiosity and that focus has to come from within.” (40:12)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On innovation cycles at CES:
  “[Eureka Park]… that's where the pure innovation lives. The next year, if successful, they move to the first floor of the Venetian. And then after two or three years…” — Curt Munk (07:37)

• On the growing practicality of CES:
  “Where years past, a large portion of this show was about entertainment… that's not what's getting the attention. It's almost like CES is getting maybe more grown up, more practical, more useful.” — Curt Munk (22:12)

• On the core value of attending CES:
  “Curation and exploring before you get here is only about 20% of the value. If you really have your eyes wide open… 80% of what you learn are things that you could not prepare for because you didn't know about it.” — Curt Munk (25:55)

• On agency vs. internal brand innovation:
  “If all of the curiosity and all of the resonant, innovative knowledge sits in your agency, you're not going to succeed the way your competitors will.” — Peter V.S. Bond (39:41)

• On leadership and innovation:
  “The whole point of being a good leader is being able to recognize…we as a board do not have the understanding of this. How do we beg, borrow or steal it to get it?... That's curiosity.” — Curt Munk (40:12–40:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• CES Structure & Experience: 04:23–09:25
• Curation Process & Booth Best Practices: 09:57–13:25
• Age Tech & Health Innovation: 13:58–17:43; 19:22–20:48
• Food Tech & Brand Integration: 21:05–31:59
• On the Floor Discovery vs. Pre-Planning: 25:55–27:21
• CES Trends—Evolution vs. Revolution: 34:05–37:36
• Advice to Brands & Executives: 35:36–40:44
• Leadership & Internal Curiosity: 39:41–40:45

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Tone & Style

• In-the-trenches insights: Practical, firsthand, conversational experiences from “the ground” at CES.
• Candid advice: Both Peter and Curt use wit and humor, matching the energy of live show-floor storytelling.
• Respectful irreverence: Jokes about “cast systems” of floor levels, battling for Ubers, and the ubiquity of French wine keep the episode lively and relatable.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• CES is a living crystal ball for practical consumer tech, especially in health and food.
• Brand leaders must cultivate in-house curiosity and tech fluency, not just rely on agencies or third parties.
• Integrating with connected home and health ecosystems is crucial, but brands must watch and learn before betting big, as the tech landscape is unpredictable.
• AI is pervasive but needs translation to tangible, demonstrated outcomes for both consumers and brands.
• Attending CES is as valuable for serendipitous discovery and cross-industry learning as it is for intentional research.

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For more on Curt Munk and Tracy Locke, check show notes for LinkedIn and company website links.
Missed this year? Reach out to Curt for curated tours at CES 2027.

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Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast.

[B]

Set at the intersection of commerce and tech. Your hosts, Sree Rajagopelan and Peter Vs.

[A]

Vaughn, explore how brands and retailers engage.

[B]

Consumers in a digitally driven world.

[A]

And now, here are the CPG Guys.

[C]

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast. I'm your bombastic co host, pvsb, who also moonlights is head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omni. To come, my co host, well, his daughter's fans know him as Papa Raj. He's the Chief revenue Officer at Think Blue Consulting. He's former CCO at General Mills. He's a man known as Sri Sri. And I just got back from Las Vegas where we held a party, threw a dinner, and we recorded a number of episodes. This is one such episode. We'll get to that in a second. Say to our audience, if you're not already doing so, please actually follow us on your preferred podcast platform, be it Apple, Spotify or even YouTube, whatever one you choose. Because if you follow us, then when we release new episodes, well, those episodes will automatically appear in your feed. Also, while you're there, if you could give us a rating, it's a big deal to us. We really would appreciate it. Rating helps make our podcast more findable by industry contemporaries of yours looking to be educated and entertained. So give us a rating, whatever number you think. We like the number five, but you.

[B]

Know, you have to be the judge.

[C]

Of that and do make sure you're following us as well. So Last year at CES 2025, Shree and I were fortunate enough to get a tour of the show floor at the Venetian Hotel by one of my Omnicom colleague. Kurt Monk is a dear friend.

[A]

He is the head of sales and.

[C]

Strategy at Tracy Lock. It's an agency that's part of the Flywheel Commerce Network within Omnicom. And the Venetian, as you'll come to find out, is where a lot of the technology around health and food is on display. He curates tours of the show floor for companies that are displaying that are particularly innovative. So we're really excited. Kurt's been doing that. At CES 2026, I had a chance to sit down, talk to him about what he does, why he does it, and what he saw. This year, it's a terrific conversation. I hope you enjoy it. So, without any further ado, let's, let's go to my conversation. I should make mention also the fact that this conversation took place within the Omnicom space at the Cosmopolitan. Thank you to Omnicom. Our friends Ro and Athena for making this podcasting studio available to us. We're very grateful. And this is where Kurt and I were able to sit down on Thursday morning of CES and go through what he thought was very notable in what was being displayed from a health and food technology perspective. So, without any further ado, here's our conversation with Kurt Monk.

[B]

Please join me in welcoming to the podcast, my friend, Kurt Monk. Kurt, how you doing?

[D]

I'm great. Thanks for having me, Peter. Ces, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Happy New Year, by the way. Excited and exhausted all at the same time.

[B]

Isn't that kind of par for the course around here?

[D]

It is.

[B]

You get in and you hit the ground running that you first fight your way for an Uber or a taxi to get over to whatever respective hotel you have, and then. And then you get yourself onto whatever show floor you want to be.

[D]

It's about three hours of waiting before you enter. Three days of sprinting.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I would. Before we get to our conversation, I'll mention to our audience, if you want to learn more about Kurt and his role as head of sales and strategy at Tracy Lock, we're going to include in the digital show notes of this episode links to his LinkedIn profile, Tracy Locke's LinkedIn page, and Tracy Locke's corporate website so that you can multitask as we go on with the melodious tones of our voices in this conversation. All right, so Kurt Sree and I spent some time with you at CES last year. You were kind enough to take us on a walk of the show floor at the Venetian. Now, what I want to say to our audience is if you're not familiar with ces, you may think of it as what you see on tv, typically videos of the mass hordes walking around the convention center with big screen TVs and robots.

[C]

Right.

[B]

But CES is much more than that. There are different components and areas of CES that focus on different, different disciplines. Anyone who listens to this podcast is probably more familiar with the ARIA or the C space where the retail media networks arrive. You see all the Lollipop Guild out with their signs for corporate meetings, up in the sky suites. You took us to the Venetian. Let's start with what is the focus of the show floor at the Venetian versus the other one, ces.

[D]

The display portion of CES takes place in about five locations in Las Vegas. The Venetian historically has been a lot of health technology, food technology, maybe more practical consumer use technology like eating, cooking, food storage, waste disposal, as opposed to televisions and gaming, which happens at the Las Vegas Convention Center. So oftentimes, in doing these tours, we have about 20 to figure out what is the commerce and retail relevant stuff to show professionals such as yourself. And generally, historically, the Venetian is the best place to do that.

[B]

All right, so then that begs my next question. How do you prepare to curate? What are you looking for? And how do you go about assessing that so that when you do take clients and prospects and other interested luminaries, the industry on tour, that you give them what you think is the best representation of what's happening?

[D]

The simple answer to that question is it's getting harder to do that than ever before because the brand names that are featured at CES are brand names that many of us in North America are not very familiar with.

[B]

So a lot of companies from Asia with names we're not familiar with, maybe we're not that good at pronouncing it. It's not the big names that we're used to, Sony and things like that.

[D]

That's correct. And as a result, their PR in engines are not as well developed or not as well developed in the channels that Curt Monk pays attention to thus far to figure out what's coming so that I can start to prepare a list. Now, generally, because CES is organized in those five spaces, there are areas such as consumer technology and health technology, where traditionally it's been fertile ground to see interesting innovations that will be relevant for retail and commerce people. So I start there.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

But the fact is, you have to move through kind of all of it relatively quickly, because even when you have a map of what brand is going to be in what place, you don't necessarily know what they're going to be showing. So you have to do a lot of work.

[B]

The comparable, I think, is, for those of you in the audience, familiar, Expo west is where all the natural food product companies go. And a lot of them, this is where they make or break. They spend their entire marketing budget on hoping that a buyer from Kroger or Albertsons or even Walmart will come by and list their product. Would you say that for a lot of these companies that are doing consumer appliances and electronics and health appliances, that there's a similar kind of a. This is where they're going to make their bet for the year to hopefully get some traction?

[D]

You get that sense, particularly in, like, Eureka park, which is underneath the Venetian. It's literally the basement of ces.

[B]

Wow. The underworld of ces.

[D]

The underworld, right. It's the least developed in terms of kind of ergonomics, flow, navigation, storytelling. The booths are very small. It's extraordinarily crowded. It's very loud. But that's where the pure innovation lives. And that innovation is organized essentially by region of the world or by country. So Italy brings their best, France brings their best. The Netherlands has a very nice display of all the innovations happening there. And what's interesting is you see first technologies develop in Eureka park in that basement. The next year, if successful, they move to the first floor of the Venetian. And then after two or three years.

[B]

The pecking order, the cast system, 100%.

[D]

Because the booths get more expensive, the displays get more robust. And so I've been coming to CES long enough that I've been able to see that translation where they literally move up floor and then eventually over to the Las Vegas.

[B]

So when you said they're organized by country, would it be safe to assume that the respective commerce or comparable commerce departments for these countries are, to a degree, enabling or organizing this kind of salvo to go? They're like, listen, we're gonna bring five or six. We're gonna curate five or six, and bring them with us, and we'll give them the, to some degree, the marketing support that they're lacking on their own.

[D]

There's no doubt that that's happening, and you can see the countries that do that best. The Netherlands is particularly strong in kind of organizing. So I don't know if it's their version of the ftc. Right. The FTC is there. The FAA is here. The DEA is here, for goodness sakes. Right. So a lot of those international countries will have those kind of promotion entities that exist within their corporate governments that help fund this, because it's very organized. Like, French tech is one of my favorites. They're always at the beginning of Eureka park, and they have about 200 displays. And that is they have unified branding. They have a very similar story. All the fonts make sense, so you can tell there's an organization.

[B]

And that's not just because they're your favorite, because they also bring some of their French wine with them to serve at the booth.

[D]

There are an awful lot of wine. I would, as you can imagine, a lot of coffee. It's just darn stimulating.

[B]

All right, so that's kind of the backdrop. So you're now on the show floor. What are you doing? Because you said you have a limited amount of time, you got to figure out very quickly what you're looking for.

[C]

What are the themes?

[B]

How do you Tackle it. First day, you've just hit the show floor, you're in past the security area, you're inside. What do you do?

[D]

First thing I do is look for things that I think have the potential to change the way people shop or buy. Coming from a retail and commerce background, always interested in those things that, you know, back when the IoT, Internet of Things was becoming very, very popular and integrated in everything that was.

[B]

Was after Metaverse, but before. Before AI, and I forget where the term before. Bingo. Okay, so it was before metaverse. Okay, IoT is every year the buzzwords circle through, right?

[D]

They do. And we'll see if we've hit peak AI this year. I don't know. But to answer your question, I always look for things that fundamentally change the relationship that people have with home activities, with shopping, with caring for their family. So, you know, connected devices, refrigerators that order by themselves. You know, as I showed you in SRI last year, there's a little bit less of it this year, but it's those all in one cooking appliances where you basically load it up with the ingredients, tell it what are your nutritional or health goals, and the darn thing prepares it, cooks it, serves it, and has it ready for you whenever you want.

[B]

Yeah, I think one of the examples that still sticks in my mind was cooking a steak. I think it like sous vided a steak, but then at the end it adds a heating element that gives it that char.

[D]

That's right.

[B]

And so it truly does all of the elements that you would want for a perfect experience, but without, you know, the kitchen staff at eleven Madison park there to do all that exacting work to give you the experience.

[D]

So it has a great consumer benefit at the end, which is a perfectly cooked steak that's seasoned exactly the way you want it. But of course, given the way things are today, a lot of those devices now connect to your ordering and purchasing ecosystem that your home uses, whether it's Amazon Fresh or Walmart.com and, you know, I looked at an example yesterday called brisket.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

Which at first glance looks like a very fancy grill with a lot of sensors, but it is an all in one cooking appliance that, you know, I won't say it chops and dices, but it does all of the food preparation and the thawing and the seasoning and the warming, and it is connected to your ordering infrastructure. Like, oh my gosh, you need some more pork loins, Peter, and I'm going.

[C]

To order them for you.

[B]

I love that. So before we get into what you really, Like, I'd like to understand what are some common mistakes that you see that exhibitors make that really detract from their ability to achieve their objective. Is there anything that you think that if you were to say to somebody, you're coming here, don't do this.

[D]

Yeah, you have to have a physical thing. Right. Because so much technology is now.

[B]

You can't just show a video of something.

[D]

You can't show a video. You can't have a screen on a wall. I think that's compelling. If someone is for you and wants an explanation, there is almost an expectation in this environment to have a physical thing that people can touch and play with. I think that's the first thing. The second thing is back to your earlier point. Any PR that you can do about your booth, about your brand, about your innovation, so that you kind of start to tease it a little bit before people show up is important. The Consumer Technology association, which kind of runs cea, has a process by which these vendors can say, hey, this is what we're bringing. This is why we think it's interesting. And you can show a picture of it. And then that way people can start to make a list. I need to go to this booth and this booth, for example, to prepare for this. I had a list of 283 booths in five locations that I was curious to go see.

[B]

Of how many beyond, there were about 283,000, about 14,000. So just there's a first level curation. And then those are the ones you're.

[D]

Going to focus on 100% because it looked like they had a technology that would be advantageous for retail and shopper or to brands.

[B]

Very interesting. All right, so we've been dancing around this. Let's get to it. Let's start with what were the themes that you said they're gonna improve better? What themes do you think were addressed well at this show from the products that you saw being displayed?

[D]

The big one for me this year that was surprising was age tech.

[B]

Age tech. So as someone who is next year going to hit his sixth decade, you.

[D]

Don'T look a day over 35, Peter.

[B]

I've got shoes that are older than 35 years, but.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Expand on that. Is it wearables? What are the things that are age tech related items?

[D]

So many things to say about that. But age tech generally falls into kind of the trajectory for the last six years has been we now have a device that monitors. Fill in the blank.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

Right.

[B]

I'm used to thinking of HTEC as I'VE fallen and I can't get up. Press the button. We've gone beyond that.

[D]

It's more than. It's that and. Right. So you think the early stage was Fitbits, you know, is my heart racing? That sort of thing. And then we moved on.

[B]

My OURA ring. We've both got our ring.

[D]

We both have our OURA rings. Proud wearers. But it's that kind of mentality of now. I can monitor this. I can monitor respiration, I can monitor heart rate. There are even smart toilets that analyze waste products for diseases and conditions that are. That are advanced.

[B]

So that.

[D]

That's kind of been well plowed technology lately. What was so encouraging this year was we've moved past this idea of monitoring and diagnostics in age tech.

[B]

So kind of like passive.

[D]

Right? Which is bad or alarmist or, you know, it's kind of back to your. Your point of I've fallen and I can't get up kind of thing. A lot of this technology was.

[B]

But they're not solving the problem. They're just telling there's a problem, There is a problem.

[D]

Problem like grandma hasn't moved in an hour.

[B]

Houston, we have a problem.

[D]

Someone should go check on Grandma. Right? That type of thing. You know, you look at the population pyramids for much of the world, it kind of makes sense that we have technology and sensors that keep track of our aging population and that still exists. And it's interesting, and I think it's remarkable. And it allows people to take care of their loved ones better. But it's moving this year to viewing with AI, to viewing aging as a new transformational stage that represents opportunities, as we now have all of these exoskeletons that allow you to get upstairs when your mobility starts to decrease in older age. We now have the ability to monitor our loved ones who have mobility issues. But now with AI, there's the expectation of you can learn new things, you can get a new degree in your 70s. You can have new social connections or tours that are designed for people with knee problems or those sorts of things where we're kind of embracing the optimism of the age because you're getting rid of the eight to five working obligations. But now with AI and neural implants, you have the ability to learn a new degree or to study something entirely new.

[B]

Well, I think, I think that's interesting. I think that is. And I think you probably like me having logged over 10,000 steps a day at this show, probably even closer to 20 or more. Those kinds of solutions are of keen Interest to us. Okay, so I would love to hear some of your top innovative product presentations that you saw at CES 2026. What really, really caught your attention?

[D]

The exoskeleton ones are always interesting.

[B]

Tell me what that is.

[D]

Where you take someone. It's essentially a device that can be plugged into your brain, activated by your hands, that allow you to lift, bend, squat, climb stairs, crouch down.

[B]

This helps people who have those impediments.

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

To do the things that younger people that are without that disability take for granted.

[D]

That is right. So it's a physical device that is aiding your internal physiology to do those things. Now, I don't want you to think this is all doom and gloom and it's just about being able to climb stairs when you're 90. It's certainly that.

[B]

I have that problem with 59. Trust me. I look at a staircase, I'm like, is there an escalator around here?

[D]

There has to be an easier option.

[B]

There's got to be an easier way.

[D]

But, you know, the positive angle of that is I think it was Delta Airlines two years ago had a exoskeleton for baggage handlers.

[B]

So that has actually a lot of relevance from a healthcare liability standpoint, that you don't want your employees blowing out their backs and giving them that power to lift bags easier.

[D]

Correct.

[B]

There's a lot of workforce efficiency and risk mitigation that goes into that.

[D]

100%. And the demonstration that they did was they had two Delta Air Lines employees. One guy looked like a linebacker, the other looked like a ballerina in her first year of college. Ballerina school. And she was wearing the exoskeleton, and he was just being a linebacker. And she was picking up 200 pound bags and flipping into what I can only describe as a basketball net easier than he could get the thing off. And so that, you know, that is a positive extension of that. And so I think the demonstration of those were they were taking people with real or imagined physical liabilities and having them do things that they could not do prior to that. That's always compelling. You know, there's also this real interesting back to the diagnostics thing where you can stare into a mirror for 30 seconds that is connected to a scale.

[B]

There's not a wicked witch on the other side of the mirror.

[D]

You know, I don't know what the hell's on the other side of that, but it's interesting.

[B]

But it's watching you.

[D]

It's watching you. It's assessing your. It's assessing your Mood, it's essential, your skin temperature. Then there is the biofeedback through the sensors. What you're holding, it has your weight, it measures your height. So it's making all sorts of really interesting health judgments about you in seconds.

[B]

And you're doing that and it's tracking you longitudinally. The more you do it over time, the whole idea, the more it's getting a picture of who you are.

[D]

That is the first thing that you stare at every morning in the bathroom. And then it starts to. Much like our aura rings. I'm sure your has indicated that, oh, there's some signs of stress, Peter. You potentially could be getting sick a little too often. So that's the thing that we appreciate about these devices and it's taking it much further. And there's almost an expectation. This is related to another thing that I'll talk about, hopefully in a minute. There's almost an expectation that technology's creating essentially a requirement that we do the minimum to care for ourselves via technology.

[B]

This is a prompt that enables us because we all have this aspiration. At the beginning of the year, I'm going to go to the gym more. I'm going to do this more, I'm going to do that more. These things help us if we really want to make that happen.

[D]

They do, they do. And they do it in a way that isn't judgmental. I don't know what your goals on your OURA ring. I know what mines are, but the way it interacts.

[B]

My goal is when I take it off to charge it, I don't forget where I left.

[D]

Heaven for good. You charge it overnight, that's the other thing.

[B]

Exactly. And then it goes, I don't have any data. Where have you been? I was charging it. Okay, that's very good. So what else did you. What else kind of like caught your. Caught your eye? Oh, my God.

[D]

So many things. This is my favorite conference. Right. Because I think if you peel back the things in the technology, you start to question, someone spent millions of dollars or millions of yuan and tens of thousands of hours of engineer time to develop this. What is the human need that they are trying to satisfy by creating this? So I think at a certain level, this is a cultural crystal ball. Why did this particular group of people say this is the most important thing that we could be spending our time on? And that's where I think the health technology. You know, there has been in years past a real emphasis on technology and agriculture. Right. And I'm kind of interested in those things because Most of us eat right. The way we produce food and the safety that's associated with that, I think is important to everyone on the planet. I did not see much of that this year, but technology is making it into areas that are tremendously practical. Where years past, a large portion of this show was about entertainment, it was.

[B]

Doing glitzy things that. Not necessarily functional problem solving.

[D]

Exactly, Exactly. So, you know, there's gaming, there's VR and AR and headsets, and we all remember that. And, you know, the screens are getting larger and higher resolutions, and there's still a component of that and that those are some of the best displays, but that's not what's getting the attention. You know, it's almost like CES is getting maybe more grown up, more practical, more useful.

[B]

They actually realize they need to sell things. And just putting something for vanity's sake is not necessarily a movie. One thing I meant to ask you is you obviously deal with a lot of clients at Tracy Lock. Do you come also with a client mindset of, you know, that there are some things that clients of yours are problems they're trying to solve, so to some degree, you're looking for solutions to those rather than just, yeah, I'm curing to see what's interesting, but I actually need to deliver against what my client needs are 100%.

[D]

Because as we do the creative and strategic development process for our client, we're always thinking, what are new territories, what are new channels? In years past, it's been, what are the influencers or the creator's role in telling this brand story?

[B]

And when you leave CES for some of your clients that aren't here, do you go back? So that's a value add that you at Tracy Lock deliver to your clients. Like, you don't have to go. I'm going to come back and I'm going to showcase the best of the best. And what I think you need to see in a concentrated way so you can make decisions that are highly relevant about your business.

[D]

Exactly. And some of our clients that are a little bit more dialed into some of these technologies and use cases will get a little bit different presentation. But everybody gets. Here are the five things that happened at ces.

[B]

Will any of them actually go so far as to say they pre gamed ces and they say, kurt here, we saw a couple things that are going to be at CES. We need you to go 100%, you know, take the band aid off, tell us what's going on under there, open up the hood, show me the Hemi.

[D]

100%. Okay, very good. 100%. What's also interesting about CES, since you asked, that is, you know, there's. We talked about the changing brand names that define ces. A lot more brands, a lot of brands that we're not familiar with. There is a, I don't know, kind of a side of CES that is hidden from the public outside of those five display spaces that define ces. For example, Samsung has been one of my clients for quite a while. Great client. They are doing more of a private display this year than invitation only. I think it is. It might be open to the public to some degree, but rather than have the space and the expense of being on the Las Vegas Convention center floor, they are doing that in one of the hotels around here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A lot of people who are familiar with the ARIA C space understand that everybody, for the most, there's not a lot actually going on on the floor of the aria. There are a couple of activations. They're not terribly big. Everything is about getting invited up to the suite. And that's where you have strategic one on one meetings.

[D]

That's correct.

[B]

That's correct.

[D]

So some of the things that we, to go back to your question, some of the things that we are flagged to see are things that are happening in those slightly more private areas.

[B]

Okay, right.

[D]

Where not all of them are necessarily happening in the public.

[B]

So it's also about. It's not only about seeing things, it's also about. Because I want to get back to some of the other things that you saw. It's also about the industry network that you've built over time. What are you looking for in terms of your connections here in making your experience at CES that much stronger? Are you listening to what other people are saying? What I saw is there are things that weren't on your radar through your creation process going into this all of a sudden. Wait, that does sound interesting. Let me go take a look at that.

[D]

Yeah. Curation and exploring before you get here is only about 20% of the value. If you really have your eyes wide open and are really taking in the CEX experience, 80% of what you learn are things that you could not prepare for because you didn't know about it. So to that point, yesterday, RZA from Wu Tang Clan was speaking over at one of the hotels about AI and creativity. And of course, being Tracy Locke and being a very AI intensive creative agency, we wanted to hear what he had to say. And he was talking essentially about AI now enables Us not to run into resource constraints when we're developing ideas creatively.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Because he talked about, you know, renting an orchestra costs $60,000, so you can't afford to keep those people for a week. But now with AI, in one day, you can get most of the sounds and the tracks that you need. And then through AI, you can extrapolate those at a much cheaper and faster pace. Right. So it's the accelerate of imagination that is kind of our agency's point of view. And he was essentially repeating that, but from a musical standpoint. Right. So you're triangulating a little bit of, yes, we think this is a big deal and we're seeing other creative experts in other fields kind of amplify that. So that's an example of, you know, there is the what happens on the show floor, but then there are the presentations, the conference side of CES where a good deal of that learning comes out.

[B]

I want to go on to that. Before I should mention that for our audience that are fans of Wu Tang Clan and appreciate the New Haven genre of pizza, you all know that on Wednesdays at Modern a pizza and in New Haven they serve Wu Tang Clan logo shaped pizzas. So. Yes, of course, but backdrop. So do you get to see any of the presentations that are happening and how do you decide? Because there are a lot going on. How do you decide which ones you want to hear? Because you've kind of got this mandate of I actually want to see the products in Slate. Are you particularly focusing on ones where they are demonstrating the actual products themselves?

[D]

Demonstrating the products or talking about using a technology in a new way? Okay, right. Those are the things I tend to prioritize every hour of ces. I generally have two or three things scheduled in terms of presentations I want to see.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

Because it is distributed all over the city of Las Vegas.

[B]

It's hard.

[D]

It takes an hour.

[B]

You have to kind of. And it's not easy to get Ubers, particularly during meal hours, but you kind of have to stake your ground and stay there for a while.

[D]

Right. So I will say, okay, I have three things I would like to see at 1 o' clock today. Wherever I happen to be at 1 o', clock.

[B]

That's what you'll see.

[D]

That's what I see. Because you can lose half the day just in Ubers and buses.

[B]

Any food technology ones that were really impressive to you.

[D]

You know, there's the continuation of kind of the smart single appliances.

[B]

You know, the all in one gets it all done.

[D]

The all in one, put your ingredients in, set the timer.

[B]

So we're beyond the air fryer genre generation. Way beyond that.

[D]

Way beyond the air fryer. Right. It's essentially the idea of you basically weigh and cut ingredients and dump them into some sort of climate controlled seasoned box and then the appliance takes care of the rest of it.

[B]

So it's even beyond a slow cooker.

[D]

It's not.

[B]

You throw a couple things in and it much more refined outcomes 100%.

[D]

And they like the subscription model where you get all of your ingredients from that particular provider. Right. But it doesn't depend upon that.

[B]

Okay, so that's actually interesting. Have you seen that connection between the actual device and and the input to that device where it can help? Because I know that there's a lot of talk about ces, about agenta commerce and how Instacart has integrated with recipes. It decides what goes in the cart. Are we seeing that connections and are brands particularly paying attention to how their product ultimately gets used in that device to give a particular outcome, a meal, a food delivery to a consumer. Is that something that they're really starting to understand they need to be planning for?

[D]

I think I'll answer your last question first. There's a lot of it out there. I don't think brands are paying attention to it because they don't know which of these technologies are going to take off.

[B]

So it's like a big roulette wheel and there are a lot of places to put chips down and they don't have enough money to put chips on every number 100%.

[D]

So at least being aware of this had thrown the vagus reference thing is important. That's a good Vegas reference. I wonder if it's even lower odds than a roulette wheel. But you know, you have to be aware of that. I mean, I'll just take the example of kind of the smart bartending machines, Artesian and. Right. And those have evolved over the last couple of years. There are a couple of them here today. You know, when they're created by a distillery portfolio of brands, it's a little bit easier for them to make the bespoke bottle that fits into the machine that's calibrated that can make your Manhattan much f faster. When you move into the open hopper versions, you know, add bourbon in containers.

[B]

Like my HP printer with the inks where I pour the ink into each of the four chambers.

[D]

Exactly. It's kind of that model that's worked out very well for hp. I don't think it's worked out very well.

[B]

No, it hasn't been adopted that easily.

[D]

CES is missing. Although we scratch at it every couple years, we're missing the brand integration into the technology store. I can say that almost full stop. There was a time where content was that thing, right. Where you think about the era of smart TVs, which seems just ancient to say, but the content and the streaming providers were a big part of that product experience. Right. We seem to be past that in kind of display technology, but in food technology and health technology, I mean, it is begging for the integration like many of us in North America have with our healthcare networks. The MyChart app. Yes, right.

[B]

It's logged into our. Whatever health system we use. I'm in use Yale, New Haven. MyChart is where I set my appointments, get my lab orders. Everything's there.

[D]

Precisely. And the gold mine opportunity is there is through some of the age technology that we were talking about, the ability to integrate with.

[B]

Oh, I want to give my doctor as much information from my OURA ring as possible so that when I come in, we're actually having a very personalized discussion about my condition. And that to me, at this point in my age, a man of a certain age, I'm very much thinking about. I don't want to waste time here. I want you to tell me things that are relevant to me.

[D]

And that's where we start talking systems. Where it goes back to your original question, right? How our brands are integrating into these technologies. We're still, we're still holding the technology up on a plinth, which is what this entire week is for. Right. It's what we should be doing. But from a consumer standpoint, I'm starting to think about the systems that connect to that, that truly make my life easier. Right. I'll give you just one example of this. I think we've hit peak robot at ces. Right. Yesterday I saw a robot playing ping pong. Robot made me.

[B]

Because that's what I'm really worried about.

[D]

Great video. I'll send it to you. It's kind of remarkable, right? I saw Robo Dance and I even saw.

[B]

If they're not playing pickleball, I don't want to see it.

[D]

I don't think anyone want to listen to that. Okay, yes, but. So we've hit that whole point. But, you know, it's like. And to what end? Right? It can go and clean my bathroom or do things like that, but unless it's connected to some other system within my house of. This is the Cleaning robot or this is the cooking robot. It just seems like we're going through the motions of proving we can do this technology. I think when those robot start to move at robot speed instead of moving at human slowness, just kind of analogs for humans as opposed to really expressing the technology potential that exists in that idea of automation. That's when I'm going to get excited, when you can make me a cappuccino via robot in 30 seconds.

[B]

So new York Times author Tom Friedman wrote a book. I'm forgetting what the name of the book is, but it was all about the massive innovation that occurred in 2007. The introduction of the iPhone, Airbnb, GitHub. There were a whole bunch of things that was what you would call a step change transformational year. So you've been to CES many times. Is this a logical evolution year? Is it a nothing really new happened year, or is it a step change year? Where would you put this in the linear history of CES? Where would you categorize the 2026 show?

[D]

It's a logical evolution. And CES is growing up and getting a little bit more practical this year.

[B]

Okay, so it's not just the bells and whistles glitzy. It's functional applications of the technology, 100%. So my last question to you will be, what would you say to brands about how they should prepare for CES happening? Either them attending and even like, who are the AT brands? Let me ask this. Who are the archetype job functions at a CPG brand that you think should be here? Like, there are some companies that I saw here on force. I'll give you. I'll name one. The Artist Formerly known as Kalanova. Now Mars Snacking. They had their CCO, their head of strategy. They had 14 people here. There were other companies who shall remain nameless, based out of Cincinnati or Englewood Cliffs, that I didn't see really any people here. Who are the people that. In what roles you think should be at CES paying attention to everything going on here?

[D]

Boy, that's a loaded question. A good one. I think anyone that touches or is responsible for a consumer or shopper experience at some point along the journey, that would include me. It would certainly include creative. It would certainly include anyone that's involved in digital and social. I think it is absolutely essential because consumers are paying attention to this. Right? You think about the tens of thousands of podcasts that are going to be covering what happened over the course of the last couple of days.

[B]

There are other podcasts beyond The CPG guys.

[D]

Well, this is the only one that matters.

[B]

Thank you. You heard this was not prompted. Okay, maybe just a little, but, you.

[D]

Know, it's kind of a cultural thing, right? It'll be superseded by the super bowl in a couple of weeks. Of course, forget about it. Everything that happened. But there's, you know, there's this little window of, hey, this happened. You know, there's not really the Halo technology that's going to impress everyone.

[B]

I just got. So at the end of last year, my FSA was about to expire, so I went and got the new version. Two glasses of the Ray Ban glasses. And by touching it, I just turned on my podcast and I was listening to it there in the background. But I already hear that Google's got their own version that's coming out. They just keep getting better. It's just. It's a. It's crazy, the, the evolutions that are going on. But what I hear you saying is, yeah, things are going. They are progressing. They're progressing at the rate that the technological capabilities are. There's nothing, though, that really makes you say, wow, this is a. As the reference I use. This is another 2007 kind of step change here.

[D]

Yeah. You know, because AI is something that is hidden in a device or a technology. It's not like a TV that you can stick out on a. A shelf and say, look at how wonderful and beautiful this is. It kind of needs to be demonstrated in some way, and that makes it harder for people to look at a thing and fall in love with the AI. But the AI is a remarkable step change in technology and consumer electronics. Right. Particularly as it starts to affect age, tech, and kind of household functions and those sorts of things. But it has to be demonstrated, and that's harder to do in three days with 228,000 other people standing.

[B]

So back to my question on. We talked about the archetypes. What is it that tracer lock is really going to be able to bring back, based on what you saw to your clients, to really make their decisions about where they invest more efficient and more impactful.

[D]

It's proof that using AI to accelerate imagination is here, and brands are starting to use it. They're starting to create products based on an expectation of accelerating an idea instead of running through years of product development time. It's the ability to prototype, the ability to bring something to life literally in hours. We see it surrounding us here, and that's what.

[B]

And those kinds of decisions have moved from the senior director level beyond the chief technical Officer and CMO level. These are the kinds of decisions that boards have to be evaluating and thinking about big investments against if they want to stay innovative in this 100%, I.

[D]

Think the investment is part of it. The other is having the curiosity and the moxie to just do it anyway. Yeah, you don't run into resource constraints the same way that we did 20, 24 months ago the way we do now.

[B]

My podcast partner sri often says, and I'll use this as a matter of fact, if you're a CMO and you don't have TikTok and Instagram on your phone, I'm not asking that you are posting. But if you do not have it and you don't understand or you are not so humble as to ask the Gen Xennial in your who sits outside your office to come in and teach you this stuff, you really are doing disservice to your role. What do you say to the people that are in those senior leadership rules about that curiosity thing? And how does that happen? If it's not just organic in them, what should they be doing to really understand so that they can keep their business growing?

[D]

So that's more of a question of leadership than it is a question of ces.

[B]

Ah, okay.

[D]

Don't you agree?

[B]

I absolutely agree. I think if you don't have it and you're not pushing it, I would also say this. If you're completely outsourcing it to your agency, you're not going to be at the cutting edge. If all of the curiosity and all of the resonant, innovative knowledge sits in your agency, you're not going to succeed the way your competitors will. 100% that really do see the value.

[D]

Outsourcing curiosity to an agency or a third party anyway is, you know, it can supplement your team. But that curiosity and that focus has to come from within. So the whole point of being a good leader is being able to recognize I as an individual, or we as a board do not have the understanding of this. How do we beg, borrow or steal it to get it? And ideally, it's someone internal within your organization, or if it needs to be outside, you have to go find that. Right? Just plow it until you determine it's going to be a thing or it's not.

[B]

So I'm going to implore our audience.

[D]

That's curiosity.

[B]

I think that's great. I'm going to implore our audience. If you're planning on going to CES next year, you're going to go to the digital show Notes of This episode, you're going to click on Kurt's link, you're going to reach out to him and you're going to say, hey, I heard about these curated tours you're doing. How do I get a little bit more involved in that? Please reach out and learn more about what Kurt and what Tracy Lock are doing to help their clients advance their businesses. Kurt, this has been an absolute joy. Appreciate you take time out of this morning on what is this day three or four of CES to speak. I'm sorry Sri couldn't be here. He was very sad that he had a conflicting meeting. I'm glad I got to do it at least. It's always good. Good to spend time with you. Appreciate you coming on the CPG Guys.

[D]

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[B]

Peter. Wow, wasn't that great?

[C]

Love talking to Kurt every chance I get. He's a very thoughtful guy. He put a lot of research and work and he brought a game today. He really had his notes and he was prepared to share with us, I think. Hopefully you got as much out of it as I did. I love one of the reasons I do this podcast is nobody learns more from the CB guys than this CBG guy because a lot of this stuff I have no idea about, so it's very educational for me. I'll make mention again if you're not already doing so, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform and the 40, nearly 41,000 people who follow us on LinkedIn trust us to both educate and entertain them. We are greatly appreciative of your loyalty towards us. We hope that the content we produce is meaningful enough to keep you wanting to come back. So anyhow, thanks for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of the CPT Guys Podcast. Goodbye.

[A]

The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGuys, LLC or the individual author, hosts or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGuys, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their.

[B]

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[A]

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