The article is from the public number: Sina Technology (ID: techsina) < span class = "text-remarks">, author: Zheng Jun, the original title: “it’s high cold! Why does Apple never attend CES and all industry shows? 》 The title picture comes from: worm creative.
The annual, week-long Consumer Electronics Show (CES) concluded last week in Las Vegas.
Undoubtedly, CES, which has a history of half a century, is the world’s largest industry exhibition and a weathervane that foresees the trends of the consumer electronics industry every year. At this year’s CES, more than 4,400 companies exhibited, attracting 170,000 people from more than 160 countries and regions around the world, including manufacturers, media, suppliers, developers, buyers, individual enthusiasts and so on.
A gimmick at CES this year is “Apple Returns to CES.”
So, is Apple really returning to CES? of course not.
Without Apple’s CES, Samsung Sony is the largest exhibitor at the booth. As the engines behind the consumer electronics industry, Qualcomm and Intel are also the mainstays of CES. Even Internet giants Google and Amazon have come to CES to promote their artificial intelligence voice assistants and smart home products.
Microsoft was the protagonist in the history of CES. Xbox, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 were the first to appear at this exhibition. The keynote speech of Bill Gates continued from 1994 to 2008, which is also the history of CES. The biggest highlight of the year.
However, Apple launched a huge outdoor advertisement in Las Vegas last year. Its main security feature is “things in the iPhone, stay in the iPhone.” It is located in the hotel directly opposite the CES pavilion. It attracted the attention of a large number of participants. (This ad is an adaptation of Las Vegas’ famous travel ad “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas”.) < / p>
What did Apple do at this CES?
They just sent a manager (not even core executives) to participate in a session about protecting user privacy Round table . As shown in the above advertisement, protecting user privacy has always been the main marketing point of Apple products, and it is also the main issue that Apple has been actively calling and promoting in the industry in recent years.
As the most important exhibition in the consumer electronics industry, CES is undoubtedly the best place to discuss this topic. Participating in this privacy roundtable, in addition to Apple’s senior director of privacy affairs, there are also the chief privacy officer from Facebook and the regulatory agency Federal Trade Commission (FTC) . Although there are also a few consumer electronics hardware products, Facebook is still a social networking giant, and of course they did not participate in CES.
However, Apple hasn’t never participated in CES. It was just the last time it was exhibited in 1992. At that time, Apple’s CEO was still John Sculley (John Sculley) . At that time, CES was still in Chicago and Las Vegas. Hosted. Scully showed off Apple’s PDA product, Newton, at the CES in Chicago in May of that year. This product was officially launched in 1993 and ceased production in 1998.
At CES in 1992, it still looks like this.
One moreIn a word, Jobs dug Scully, a sales and advertising expert from Pepsi in 1983, but when he and Scully diverged, the board of directors stood on the side of Scully, so Jobs left in 1985 and left Apple. Founded NeXT and acquired a majority stake in Pixar.
After Jobs returned to Apple as the CEO of Firefighting, the first product line to be cut off was Scully’s Newton. Proud Steve Jobs has never forgiven Scully, who has publicly praised Jobs for the tremendous changes he has brought to the consumer electronics industry and Apple.
Back to the original topic, as the most influential company in the consumer electronics industry, why didn’t Apple participate in CES? Yes, Scully has participated in CES, but Jobs has never participated.
Why doesn’t Apple attend CES? To answer this question, first of all, what is the significance of exhibitions such as CES?
Provide a huge traffic platform, attracting the attention of global technology media and digital enthusiasts, providing exhibitors with a stage for new product releases, a place to discuss cooperation and procurement.
This is the answer, Apple has enough proud capital, they don’t need CES at all .
As the most valuable and influential company in the global consumer electronics industry, every Apple product launch is a global media focus. They have more than a billion levels of loyal user groups, and a direct-operated store system spread across major national markets. All operators and channel providers have actively negotiated cooperation with Apple. Apple doesn’t need a stage like CES at all.
In fact, for Apple, not participating in CES has no loss at all. And even without CES, Apple ’s influence is omnipresent. Every year at CES, a large number of software and hardware products built around the Apple iOS platform appear.
For the same reason, in addition to CES in Las Vegas, there is also a global one in Barcelona, Spain.Apple will not participate in the Mobile Communication Conference MWC, the Consumer Electronics Fair IFA held in Berlin, Germany, and the International Computer Show Computex held in Taipei, China. Not to mention these industry exhibitions, Apple does not even want to participate in its own ecological exhibition Macworld.
However, Macworld is not Apple ’s own event, but an Apple Eco-Products exhibition organized by IDG Group magazine “Macworld”. This exhibition started in 1985 and is held in San Francisco every January, 2014 is the last one.
Actually, Apple may not have participated in CES before. Another reason is that CES and Macworld crashed in Las Vegas. Before 2008, Apple would usually release new products on MacWorld, and Jobs would also give a keynote speech on this stage.
iTunes, Safari, Mac Mini, MacBook Air, a series of classic Apple products are released on the Macworld stage. Of course, the most important one is the first iPhone. On January 9, 2007, Apple released the iPhone at the Macworld conference, taking away all the limelight of CES at the same time.
2009 was the last time Apple participated in Macworld, and Jobs did not attend the keynote speech of that year, when he was fighting the disease. But Apple’s withdrawal allowed MaThe cworld show lost its meaning. After barely maintaining it for several sessions, Macworld finally ended its thirty-year history in 2014. It can be said that it was Apple who personally ended the Macworld conference. Apple fans and attendees who originally participated in the Macworld conference are now concentrated in Apple’s own global developer conference, WWDC.
Apple withdraws from Macworld, intending to concentrate the press conference on its own stage, of course, it will not consider CES. In 2009, Steve Jobs, who was still on sick leave, directly rejected the Consumer Electronics Association of the CES sponsor. text-remarks “label =” Remarks “> (Gary Shapiro) ‘s invitation did not even consider going to CES in 2010 for a keynote speech.
Apple’s press conference has been relatively fixed in recent years. There are usually three to four press conferences each year, the most important of which are the June WWDC Conference (usually released software products) and the iPhone in September Press conference. In addition, there will be irregular press conferences each spring and October to release iPad, MacBook or software product lines.
Apple’s exit from Macworld also inspired another giant, Microsoft. In 2012 Microsoft also announced farewell to CES, farewell to this Microsoft has participated in the exhibition for 18 consecutive years. At the time, Microsoft stated in its official blog that the pace of Microsoft’s product release was out of step with CES in January. Microsoft had its own press conference and website, more than a dozen retail stores, and social media fans on Facebook and Twitter. Time to change. ” This reason is almost the same as Apple’s announcement in 2009 that it would withdraw from Macworld.
In addition, refusing to participate in various industry exhibitions has also enhanced Apple’s “different” brand positioning. This unique high-cold brand image is exactly what Apple has tried to create in the classic ad “Extraordinary” (Think Different) It is also an important reason to support the Apple brand premium.
If Apple really chooses to participate in CES on a certain day, and set up an exhibition at the Las Vegas Convention Center with many peers, and attract traffic in the crowded crowd, that is the end of Apple . Because this means that Apple’s unique charm halo is gone, this brand is no different from other hardware manufacturers.
Think Different.
The article is from the public number: Sina science and technology (ID: techsina) , author: Zheng Jun