With over 100,000 visitors, and 2200 companies exhibiting across 110,000 square meters, it could be a challenge to get noticed at the world’s largest conference on all-things mobile: Mobile World Congress (MWC), hosted in Barcelona, Spain. With this years’ MWC theme perfectly reflecting the current state of the industry: “Mobile is Everything”, the centre stage for all app companies was the MWC’s App Planet, where 18 Alliance members were exhibiting their products and services, see which of our members were exhibiting here.
EU policy makers meet Alliance Member Smaato
MEP App Planet Tour
In order to attract more attention to our members and introduce them to key policy makers, the Apps Alliance EU Policy team arranged a tour with Members of the European Parliament (MEP’s) who are part of the European Internet Forum (EIF), an organization that helps shape EU policy for the Digital Single Market and Digital Revolution. The delegation of MEPs was lead by the Alliances’ EU Policy Director, Catriona Meehan, visiting the stands of Applift, Appsflyer, Perk & Smaato. Watch interviews and learn more about their visit here.
But the way in which the Apps Alliance truly stole the spotlight was by bringing together our amazing network of companies and individuals to host three of the signature parties. The interest from the industry was overwhelming and the parties were sold out within a week of opening ticket sales. With over 2000 people having attended, our events welcomed the best of the best in the industry.
Welcoming Party
The first annual “Welcoming Party” – co-hosted by CTIA – was an invite-only event for 200 industry executives. The event offered an evening of drinks and tapas at Barcelona’s popular bar & restaurant, Marmalade. Guests were able to shake off the jet lag with 5 minute chair massages, and strike a pose in the photo room with props and a professional photographer. Check out all the photo’s from the evening here.
Mobile Apps Party
But the Welcoming Party was just a taster of what was to come. The Mobile Apps Party, described by Venture Beat as “one of MWC’s signature parties” in 2015, was ready to take things to the next level. More than 1200 attendees enjoyed live entertainment, fun foods and treats, games, and more in the stunning surroundings of the legendary W Hotel.
Organized in partnership with our co-hosts AppLift, Amazon Appstore, Ericsson, Intel, Meme Global, and Chocolate by Vdopia, the Mobile Apps Party offered surprises for different app related categories including Games, Cloud, Video, Entertainment and Media. From a chocolate fountain to light jugglers, from Candy (Cloud) Floss to LED stilt walkers and from Giant Jenga to foosball, every inch of the space was filled with fun.
See all the photos from the Mobile Apps Party here and check out photos from the ‘MemeMachine’ photobooth here.
Mobile Marketing Party
Last but certainly not least, the Alliance organized the third annual Mobile Marketing Party, co-hosted by Branch Metrics, Motive Interactive, and Apptentive. Guests mixed and mingled with mobile marketers, industry influencers, and app developers at the beautiful historic Fábrica Moritz in central Barcelona.
The evening brought together more than 450 global mobile marketing experts for a night of endless drinks, delicious food, and networking, but what truly got the party going were the LED dancers on the venues amazing rotating stage.
Check out all of the pictures from this event in our Mobile Marketing Party Facebook album and fun from the photobooth here.
Alliance Members Share Insights into what they’re most excited about in 2016
We do love to party, but that didn’t stop us from also maximising our time on the Congress floor and with so many of our members under one roof, we took the opportunity to sit down with a few of them and find out what’s really exciting them in 2016. View the videos here. Thanks to AppLift, AdColony, Smaato, Spyke Media, Sirqul, Apptentive, Ericsson and Perk for taking the time to talk to us.
Thanks to @AppsAlliance for stopping by at our booth and the great interview with Heike and Ben. #MWC16 pic.twitter.com/3qAIf5mKM0
— Spyke Media (@SpykeMedia) February 24, 2016
Research & Insights at Mobile World Congress
The Alliance Research & Insights Division was also on hand at Mobile World Congress and 4 Years From Now, conducting in-person intercept surveys on the topic of data retention, collection, and use. Combined with questions asked on our events registration forms, we collected responses from over 1,000 MWC attendees. Be sure to keep an eye out for the report on these results in the next two weeks.
That’s a wrap
So with three epic parties, thousands of interviews and endless meetings behind us, it’s safe to say this years Congress was a successful one for the Alliance and all our members. The only question remains: is it too soon to be looking forward to MWC 2017?!
