Lisa Johnston On Jan 28 2013 - 1:00am

CES Wrap-Up: Heads Up!

NEW YORK — Perhaps to no one’s surprise, the everexpanding headphones category was ubiquitous at this year’s International CES, visible in every hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as off-site at multiple hotels in the area.

The trend of celebrity-stamped models showed no signs of retreating, although many manufacturers are attempting a different tack on this trend.

Ben Arnold, industry analyst at The NPD Group, noted to TWICE that although celebrity endorsements are still a successful strategy, “more companies [are] moving towards products geared toward listener profiles.” He pointed to Monster’s EA and Tumi partnerships as examples.

“Those are endorsements of a different kind, but they also are targeted towards the gamer and business traveler consumer. In our research, we’ve seen that premium headphone owners tend to own multiple pairs — most likely for different activities — so seeing models for specific listening occasions makes a lot of sense and wasn’t something we saw at last year’s show.”