Every fall, someone decides CES is their launch plan. Book a booth, write a release, show up in Las Vegas, and wait for the press.
CES is a stage. It is not a plan. And the coverage that comes out of the first week of January is mostly decided before anyone gets on a plane.
The math on the floor
CES 2027 runs January 6 to 9 in Las Vegas. Media get two days first: Media Day 1 and Unveiled Las Vegas on Monday, January 4, and Media Day 2 on January 5, both at Mandalay Bay.
Look at last year's audited numbers. CES 2026 had more than 4,100 exhibitors, including some 1,200 startups in Eureka Park, and 7,037 media, content creators and industry analysts. That's fewer than two people with a press-style badge for every exhibitor, and that group includes analysts and creators, not just reporters with an assignment.
The same audit says AI drew 39,929 attendees, up 22% year on year. Which tells you what a lot of booths will say. If your headline is "AI-powered," you've written the same headline as the people on either side of you.
The inbox was full before you got there
Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026 surveyed nearly 900 journalists, mostly in the US. On a normal workday, 29% get 6 to 10 PR pitches and 14% get more than 20. CES week is not a normal workday.
What they do with those pitches is blunt:
- 88% immediately disregard pitches that don't match their coverage.
- 71% reject pitches that feel overly promotional. Half are put off by anything that looks like a mass email.
- Across eight years of Muck Rack surveys, 69% prefer pitches under 200 words, and 78% want them before noon.
- What they want with a pitch: clear relevance to their beat (70%), interview access (58%), original data (40%), high-resolution images (37%), exclusive or embargoed content (33%).
So the CES question is not "how do we reach more press?" It's "which 30 people should see this first, and what do we hand them?"
What actually earns a CES story
A scene, not a spec. The show is the one week a writer can put your product in their hands. Use it. When we worked on the launch of JBL's Synchros headphones, the whole live set could only be heard through the product (the story is in Put It in Their Hands). The principle travels: build the moment so trying the product is the point.
A sentence a writer can repeat. If your story needs a glossary, it isn't ready. "A smart ring" is a category. Explain what it does that nobody else's does, in one line.
Proof from outside. Writers lean on things they didn't have to take your word for. Third-party testing, a partner with a name, a real retail date and price. CES Innovation Awards count here too, though applications for 2027 closed on August 19. Honorees are revealed November 9, or January 4 for products that choose the embargo.
Something to do after the show. Review units, a ship date, a follow-up briefing. The best CES story is often the one written in February, by someone who had time to use the thing.
What to do about it
October: decide the story. One product, one claim, one sentence. Decide where it proves itself: a demo, a listening room, a hands-on slot. If the conditions matter (noise, light, Wi-Fi), plan them now.
November: build the list by beat, not by badge count. Thirty right names beat three hundred wrong ones. Include the specialist sites and newsletters that cover your category every week, not just the big tech desks. If you have Innovation Award news on November 9, it's your first reason to call.
December: pre-brief under embargo. Exhibitors get access to the CES media list on December 1. Most of the useful work happens in the weeks after that: short, one-to-one pitches, an embargo set for your announcement, demo slots booked in advance. Finish the press kit before the holidays, not on the plane. Specs, price, availability, high-res images and a spokesperson who can take hard questions.
January 4 and 5: be ready for media days. That's when writers are filing ahead of the floor opening. Your news should be live, your embargo lifted on time, and your people where they said they'd be.
After the show: send the units. Follow up with everyone who stopped by, and get review hardware out while they still remember the demo. Put the product in the room. Let the press do the rest.
Two presses, one show
In January, Las Vegas is eight hours behind London. An embargo that lifts at 9 a.m. on the Strip lifts at 5 p.m. in London, late in a UK editor's working day. If you sell in Britain, set embargo times and briefings that work on London hours too, and don't assume a US pitch will land unchanged with a UK editor. Same story, different angle.
CES rewards the companies that treat it as one week inside a longer campaign. The show gives you a stage. The plan around it decides whether anyone writes about what happened there.
Heading to CES 2027 with something to launch? Request a briefing while there's still time to plan it.