Inside Digital Agency Razorfish’s Big Bet on CES

ADWEEK is shadowing Razorfish at CES this week. Follow along for more behind-the-scenes reporting from the event.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a big moment for agencies looking to set the stage for the year. 

For Razorfish, the Publicis-owned digital agency on the cusp of its 30th anniversary, this year’s CES marks a time to celebrate, but also to look ahead to the next 30 years of innovation.

“We want to have a moment to celebrate the last 30 years, and really acknowledge all of the work that we’ve done, all the firsts that we’ve had. But there are so many firsts ahead of us,” said Razorfish president Dani Mariano.

CES is inherently not a marketing show—but while the consumer gadgets of the future are set up on the Las Vegas Convention Center show floor, the marketing industry has established a robust satellite conference at the C-Space convention center at the Aria hotel.  

The tech show is a chance for Razorfish to connect with clients and vendors at the top of the year, set priorities and even finish up planning for the year ahead. But it’s also a moment to explore the technology of the future, “dream a little bit,” and get inspired about what’s to come, said Razorfish CEO Josh Campo. 

“You have the benefit of not being in an office somewhere and being already constrained in your thinking,” he said. 

Fostering client connections

Razorfish’s attendance at the show is largely driven by clients. The agency has between 15 and 20 people at CES this year, with more people joining at the last minute as their clients make plans to attend. 

While there are no specific goals for the agency to hit around new business or striking deals, networking and serendipitous run-ins are a big benefit of attending. For example, Mariano shared that she ran into someone while having lunch at the Wynn hotel that she had been trying to get a meeting with for months. 

“There is always a surprise—a product you weren’t expecting, a relationship that got started,” she said.

More than a dozen Razorfish employees gathered near the convention center on Tuesday to share plans for how and where they’re connecting with existing clients like Bread Financial and Samsung as well as building relationships with potential business partners and those the agency is currently pitching.

It’s a mix of connecting with industry leaders during tours, meetings, happy hours, dinners, or even settling debates over which late night fast food burger is superior—In-N-Out or Shake Shack.

“The metric of success is, how are we maximizing our time with our clients?” Campo said.

Taking a practical lens to futuristic tech

Veteran CES attendees know that while some of the consumer tech gadgets on the show floor represent opportunities for today or tomorrow, others won’t be realistically used by consumers for the next three, five, or even ten years. 

Campo reminisced on the promise of augmented and virtual reality tech that has been hyped for the past several years, and particularly last year after Apple released its Vision Pro headset. 

“It’s cool, but it’s wonky to wear and it costs a lot of money,” he said. “You kind of had a sense that the price point was not going to take off.”

One of the goals Razorfish has at CES is walking its clients through the technology on the show floor and helping them understand what has near, mid- and long-term impact. Clients are more oriented toward tech and experiences that will be adoptable by consumers in the near term, Campo said. 

“Pie in the sky is interesting and it’s useful, but it really comes down to, we have a year ahead of us, and we all have KPIs to hit. What’s going to help us with that?” he said. “We are here with clients. And so that does also bring us back to the marketing challenges that we have to help clients solve this year.”

AI everything

AI-powered everything is again a huge trend at CES this year. “I think it’s going to be a label slap on pretty much everything,” Mariano said. 

As AI has become more accessible and available to consumers, Mariano is looking for a deeper understanding of what kind of AI is being used in consumer products, and how the technology is used. “What are you really talking about when you say AI?” she said. 

At CES, the focus on AI will not be so much on how it can change agency workflows, but an opportunity for Razorfish to assess how consumer tech brands are leveraging AI and work that into its own clients’ positioning. Campo expects to see a lot more around “agentization of AI,” as chatbots are very front-and-center for consumers. 

“I think consumers this year will continue to engage more and more with it, and that changes the comfort level of our clients,” he said. 

Campo and Mariano are both interested in understanding how AI is going to play out in the automotive and health tech spaces, given its client set. For the former, Campo is looking for potential tie-ups between automakers and operating systems from Amazon, Apple, or Google. “Are you going to buy your car based on the operating system in the car?” he said. 

In health tech, the agency is keenly aware of the privacy concerns from consumers and the amount of sensitive data being collected about their bodies, especially as wearables advance. “We’re collecting more data than ever before on humans,” Mariano said. 

But this year, the hype around AI may not be as strong among clients who, according to Campo, have a much better “savviness and understanding” of the dangers of AI. “I do think it’s front of mind for them, because there have been some backlashes,” he said.

As a member of the steering committee for the C2PA, which governs content provenance, it will be on Razorfish to keep ethics and transparency front and center for clients while exploring the possibilities of AI in consumer tech.

“We know we’ve signed up to help make these guidelines, so we have to follow the guidelines,” Mariano said.