Blog

Automotive Suppliers: Will These Mistakes Crash Your CES 2025 PR?

After seeing a 15% boost in senior-level executive attendance in 2024, CES is positioned to dominate the world of tech news once again in 2025.

Retaining its crown as the world’s most influential technology event, the potential for automotive and vehicle tech suppliers to make an impact at CES 2025 may be stronger than ever. Driving this opportunity is a continued level of attention focused on the evolution of mobility, with questions still swirling about EV adoption and infrastructure … along with strong interest in AI, dynamic and sustainable innovations, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and the ongoing progression of ADAS technology.

But like any company participating at CES, success relies on planning smart and avoiding pitfalls that could result in your story being lost in the mammoth experience.

Being an automotive or mobility tech supplier at CES comes with a list of challenges, along with many opportunities. It can be electrifying to be a part of such an impactful show and have the chance to interact with media outlets and potential customers. For some sense of scope, last year’s CES hosted more than 4,000 registered exhibitors, over 5,000 journalists and nearly 140,000 participants.

But with a show of this size, the competition for attention is fierce.

With more and more mobility-related companies investing in creating a CES presence, all trying to catch the eye of top journalists covering the industry, it is essential to avoid PR blunders if you want to maximize your time – and maximize what surely is a considerable investment of company resources.

While there is no such thing as guaranteed success at CES, we can offer up our top five pitfalls that companies in the automotive and mobility space need to avoid for the best chance to have a productive and successful event in terms of media relations. We share these tips based on our experiences assisting numerous clients prepare for CES in years past.

1. Thinking You Have Plenty of Time

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but chances are you’re already running behind in your CES planning. “But we’re already registered! We have a booth booked!” Hate to break it to you, but that’s not all you need to be doing.

Your company needs to be deciding, in fact finalizing, what big announcements, product launches, unveilings, etc. it will be making at the show. CES is not the place for the type of news you might send out in a typical press release. It’s not a showcase for media that you might host yourself. This is the big stage for game-changing tech and industry-altering announcements.

You should be cementing plans for your CES announcements, including what the key messaging will be for your spokespeople – not to mention getting approval from management – WELL in advance.

Waiting to do this can harm your prospects significantly, especially if you end up with requests from the media asking for information in advance prior to the show, which is a very common ask. You need to be prepared to avoid last-minute scrambling as much as possible.

2. Not Putting on Your Detective Cap

While the size and scope of CES can be intimidating, there are ways to use this scale to your benefit during the planning stage.

There is no shortage of media coverage, experiences, and opinions about CES out there. The automotive / mobility sector presence at the event has been steadily growing for years and nearly everyone who has attended previously has a story, either of success … or of the opposite. These can be learning experiences with helpful takeaways.

Try to network with your peers, with communications professionals and PR agency teams who have logged experience at CES to get some insight. Reach out to media and influencers with whom you already have good relationships. Ask their thoughts about their experiences at the show. What worked for them? What did they hate? What are they looking for the most?

You can also take advantage of the planning resources from CES management itself and reach out early to learn your options as an exhibitor, attendee, or sponsor. CES offers automotive and mobility suppliers a wide variety of options to help boost your presence, and the only way to find out the specifics is to ask.

3. Getting Lazy with Your Media List

Creating your target media list for CES pitching comes with more levels of pre-planning and research than creating lists for other news announcements does. Don’t sit back and rely on your everyday process!

Identifying top targets in the automotive, mobility and technology sectors is something you’ve most likely already done for your ongoing news throughout the year … but CES requires you to cast a bigger net.

One tip is to monitor coverage and look back on what media and outlets covered vehicle tech news during previous years at CES. Then get a leg-up early by following those journalists and outlets throughout the year, to learn more about their interests and to build relationships with them via other opportunities long before January rolls around.

If, coming into CES season, a reporter already knows they can count on you for quality, relevant information and knows you deliver, you can become a great resource to them during the hectic schedule of CES. Help each other cut through the clutter!

4. Not Being Sympathetic to the Media’s CES Schedule

It is essential for companies participating at CES to acknowledge the harsh reality of the show for the reporters covering it. Journalists are bombarded with literally thousands of pitches, invites, interview offers and “exclusives” from exhibitors and attendees from the industry sectors they cover.

So, a key component of your outreach approach should be, “how do we make things easier, more convenient and more productive for our key media targets?”

While buried in an overflow of CES pitches, a journalist’s response to you might not be immediate. And they might not be able to commit to visit your booth at a specific time during the show. You need to have flexibility and plan accordingly. Make sure your communication materials about what you will be highlighting at CES are not only in front of the media early, but also show true newsworthiness while being straightforward and easy to digest.

Any pitching around one-on-one interviews, press conferences, product unveilings and tech demonstrations should be done as early as possible via personalized outreach to your top media targets, in the hopes of getting on their radar way ahead of time.

But if that fails, having the ability to be flexible enough to arrange last-minute media interviews and visits onsite during the show and getting reporters quick access to your spokespeople can be a major benefit.

5. Not Living in Reality

Don’t set yourself up to fail before CES even arrives. Your company is investing a lot of time, money and resources to be there. With that kind of commitment, the last thing you want is to set expectations too high and pin yourself to unachievable goals.

It’s exciting to think about being featured on a tech segment on CNN or landing feature coverage in Wired or Automotive News. And maybe you will!

However, the reality is that CES is one of the, if not THE most, competitive events around. You’re not only competing with the biggest names in your own industry but also with huge-name consumer electronic product announcements outside of the automotive space, which often create the loudest buzz.

When laying out your goals for the show, your focus should be placed on quality rather than quantity. What are your competitive advantages? Who is your exact audience? Will your top experts have enough availability during the show? Companies often take their executives and subject matter experts to CES but they don’t consider how many other obligations – such as customer and prospect meetings – they have which can severely limit their availability for media interviews.

You should carve out times for media accessibility for each key person to maximize your PR results. Think about what customers and prospects you’re hoping to reach the most at CES. Who are your top media targets, and do they reach those potential customers? If a journalist could take away one thing from your presence at CES, what would it be?

Key takeaway:  if you can avoid making the five mistakes above, you could be well on your way to scoring CES 2025 success. And, of course, if you need expert help from PR professionals who have supported automotive and mobility suppliers at CES for years, email us at bianchipr@bianchipr.com.

You might also be interested in:

• CES 2025: Expert Tips to Ensure Mobility Supplier PR Success
• CES 2025: What to Do Now to Prepare
• Meet the Podcaster: Jan Griffiths, Founder of Gravitas Detroit & Host of the Automotive Leaders Podcast