I wrote this for the Harvard Business Review’s Web site last week. Here is the intro and the first of the six marketing mistakes I saw (I saw a lot more than six, but these are the big ones).

I’ve spent the week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where billion-dollar companies unveil multi-million-dollar products looking for mainstream popularity, and where startups unveil ideas, looking for angles and angels.

And everywhere you go in this gathering of the smartest people in the most exciting business category on the planet, there are marketing mistakes being made. It’s fascinating, really: most of the products and ideas shown here are tremendous — it’s the showing that is generally awful. The engineering of electronics has never been healthier, but the quality of the marketing lags far behind. To wit:

All the focus is on the features, not the lifestyle. I tell my clients that if they want to create consumer evangelists, they must begin by painting a picture of lifestyle improvement. Show the consumer what their life will look like after using your device for a while. Sure, it’s an industry show, and the press here understands technology, but how do you think they will communicate about your product if all you give them is tech specs?

For example, you don’t make a video-distribution technology. You let people enjoy their favorite movies and shows, from any device, on any screen in their home.

You don’t make wireless Airplay speakers. Rather, you liberate music from the confines of a hard drive for families to enjoy together.

Read the next five problems over at HBR.