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Image from ETC-USC used under CC license.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But not when it comes to CES, the largest launch party of the year for consumer electronics. Some of the biggest innovations of the year are unveiled at the show – technology that can easily impact every aspect of our lives. CES officially kicked off on Wednesday, but the onslaught of news came Monday and didn’t wane until late Thursday afternoon.

Setting measurement objectives for your tech client is something that should occur at the very beginning of a campaign, not as an afterthought. Gathering insights, recognizing trends and adjusting the program accordingly is paramount in any B2B campaign.

To paraphrase the poet Robert Burns: Oftentimes even the best laid plans need course correction. Maybe, while working through a plan, you see results coming that aren’t what you intended. But often it’s because you’ve determined you hit the right chord while in the midst of your plans, and something is working well and you need more of it. It’s positively impacting the business goals you’ve set in advance of the campaign.  And you’ve been able to demonstrate its effectiveness through the use of proper goals and measurement methodologies that key stakeholders agreed to from the start.

As we celebrate our 20^th anniversary at PAN this year, I am proud to write these blog posts every month that take a look back at where we have come from and where we are going. Over the past three months, I decided it would be fun to focus each post on one of the three pillars of a PR firm: talent, new business and clients.

I like to think that I saved the best for last with this three-part blog series. Not to say that clients outweigh my appreciation for the other two pillars discussed in my previous two posts: talent and new business. But, the conversation around clients is an interesting one. Clients are one area that really demonstrates just how much PAN has grown over the years.

Clients are what keep us in business, keep us motivated and keep us fresh. Over the years, our clients, past, present and future, have played and will continue to play a role in shaping PAN. For me, something that sets PAN apart when it comes to clients, and has attributed to an average client tenure of three-and-a-half years, is our VPs’ level of involvement. From the minute Mark or Tim identifies a prospect, we assign a VP; that VP has a vested interest in winning the business and stays on the account adding value throughout its tenure in the firm. That VP knows every aspect of the client’s business!

While most consumer goods professionals have been thinking about gift guides for the holidays (is it really going to get cold again?!), consumer tech folk have another looming winter date on their mind: CES. 

Image by Sumit Chauhan used under CC license.

Early this week, an app called Slice published a report stating the Apple Watch was “tanking” and likened the situation to the dramatic failure that was Google Glass. Apple Insider then countered the report by stating what it actually showed was that the device is completely dominating the smartwatch market. 

No matter who you believe or what your stance on the Apple Watch is, this situation is a clear demonstration of how extremely volatile this emerging market is. 

We thought that given the general uncertainty around wearables, it would be a good time to review the announcements made this year at Google I/O, Apple WWDC, E3 and Wearable World Congress – the events that lay out the game plan for the technology sector every spring. By their very nature, these events not only affect developers, but every industry that utilizes mobile software. Essentially, if your company has an app or is planning on creating one, pay attention.