Big, small companies love CES

Ken McCall

Friday, Jan. 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

RICHARD Ettelson remembers the very first Consumer Electronics Show in 1967, though not all that fondly.

"It was in New York at the American Hotel," says the 68-year-old owner and chief of Electric Brands. "I was fairly new in the business -- our company was only 6 years old.

"I had a little booth with one table. But when I got there, they had lost my samples. I had nothing to show.

"So I went to a sign maker and I got a sign that read: 'Our line was so hot, they stole our samples.'"

Ettelson laughs. "That's how we got started."

Three decades later, Ettelson's family-owned company still keeps it simple. Dwarfed by immense virtual villages erected by international electronics giants, Electric Brands gets by with a few hundred square feet, one unassuming desk and products hung on a couple of display panels.

Including sales reps, the company patriarch figures he's brought about 35 employees to CES this year. He doesn't know how much it's going to cost him, though.

"I have people who take care of that," he says with an affable shrug. "As long as they tell me I can afford it, I guess it's OK."

But Ettelson speaks for everyone -- big boys included -- when he says CES is one show his manufacturing and export company "would not miss."

"It gives us a showcase for customers we might otherwise miss," he says. "Every show we've been in has given us some positive result."

This year's hot product from Electric Brands is a mini-boom box about the size of a large Walkman.

"It's the hottest thing in the world," Ettelson says without a hint of a blush. "It's very big in Japan, Mexico, Europe. Companies order it to give away as a premium."

Ettelson also shows off his company's six-in-one radio flashlight that includes a siren, blinker, clock-calendar, AM-FM radio and receiver tuned to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 24-hour weather channel.

Just a few yards away, electronic giants Casio, Sharp, RCA and others battle it out for visitors' attention with great, multicolored sweeps of faux architecture punctuated with blockbuster action films blasting on huge-screen TVs and state-of-the-art sound systems.

Every time you turn around, Helen Hunt is ducking a tornado or Sam Neill is smelling tyrannosaurus breath.

But "Twister" and "Jurassic Park" aside, the real action is in the back rooms, where millions of dollars of orders are placed.

"CES is important because a lot of our buyers come to see what's new," says Casio's Pat Carrasco. "It's a chance for retailers to catch up on all of our products, whether it's TVs or watches or toys or calculators or audio."

Carrasco, the company's advertising and public relations manager, estimates Casio has close to 90 employees manning their mini-city and will spend about $1.1 million when all is said and done.

Give or take $100,000.

Carrasco is most excited about the company's new "handheld PC," Cassiopeia, which features a flip-up display, a mini-Microsoft Windows interface and Internet access from anywhere within cellular telephone range. The unit will retail for $499 with two megabytes of memory and $599 with four megabytes.

A few steps away at Sharp's electronic pleasure dome, however, John Hamman fairly sniffs at Casio's piddling handheld. If you want to see something really cool, says the product marketing manager, get a load of the color Zaurus, Sharp's mini-Web browser.

About the size of a very thin videocassette, the Zaurus does all the personal information management tasks of most handhelds, Hamman says, but it also surfs the Net with a small-but-clear color monitor.

In addition, you can turn it into a digital camera by plugging into the unit's type 2 PC slot.

"There's nothing on the market quite like it," Hamman says.

Actually, the color Zaurus isn't on the market in this country yet. But it's a hit in Japan, he says, where it retails for between $1,000 and $1,300.

"We're looking at the needs of the marketplace," says Hamman. "We will be delivering before the end of the year."

Sharp spokeswoman Nancy Levene says the color Zaurus is just one example of what makes CES so valuable.

"It allows us to show off some very new technology," she says.

Walk another few steps, and there's Joannie Peteani beating on some more new technology.

Sitting beside her keyboard player, the drummer is rocking out on a set the size of a desk blotter.

It's Yamaha's DD-50 digital drum machine, a small, black panel with a half-dozen programmable drum pads, and a couple foot pedals for bass drum and high hat cymbal. It sounds good through the company's amplifier and, says Peteani, it's easy to play.

"I'm just playing it just like a drum set," says the leader of "Then and Now," a California band currently playing at the Stratosphere.

Best of all, it only costs $249.

The DD-50 is one of two Yamaha musical products that won innovation awards from the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, sponsor of CES. The other, says Yamaha official Henio Arcangeli, is the PC Music Studio -- a $299 keyboard that can interface with personal computers to give music lessons, teach music history or offer educational music games.

"It's so hot," says Arcangeli, unknowingly echoing Ettelson's sign of 30 years ago, "we don't have any in the stores right now."

And although Yamaha's "half-million-dollar" budget may dwarf Electronic Brand's, Arcangeli and Ettelson are here for the same reasons.

"You have all the hottest, new, exciting products," says the Yamaha man. "And the consumers who do come in are very passionate about electronics. You get really good feedback.

"They'll either say, 'Nah, I don't need another one of these,' or 'Wow, that's great.'

"It's a very effective showcase."