The first in a series of informal seminars organized by the MMA Germany draws 130+ attendees for a spirited and spontaneous discussion of the ‘Mobile Shift’ in consumer behavior, brand management, creative execution and media planning. The event, Mobile Marketing Redefined! (October 27, Berlin), was hosted at SAP headquarters in Berlin, and brought together an impressive mix of brands and marketers from leading companies across Europe — not just Germany. A special guest was Chris Babayode Managing Director, EMEA, who came to formally congratulate the MMA Germany on a successful launch in September that enjoyed significant national and international press coverage, as well as connect with the many high-caliber speakers and attendees. The event ended on a downtempo note with live music, food and ample networking time.

Joerg Anhalt, SAP head of business development and sales, sums up the sentiment of the event when he says: “Mobile is the future.” Mobile is also gaining new importance as The Great Connector, able to bridge the digital and physical worlds and benefit from the market trends and human behavior traits that keynote speaker and VentureBeat Insights mobile analyst Peggy Anne Salz told the audience are transforming all communications.

In addition, MMA Germany founding members adsquare (Daniel Rieber, MMA Germany Vice-Chair and VP Marketing adsquare), SAP XM (René Bellack, Lead Advertiser Development), Smaato (Susanne Thompson, Senior Director of Global Marketing) and Telefónica Deutschland (Simon Dean, Head of Media Services) joined Executive Committee member Google (Thomas Wlazik, Industry Head Comparison Google Germany) participated in “Welcome To The Machine Zone”, a hard-hitting panel where they discussed the advance of mobile programmatic and the wider impact on the advertising ecosystem. Google also presented a fact-packed case study with Arthur Mai, Chief Marketing Officer of Idealo, stressing the role a proper mobile presence plays in the overall success of mobile commerce.

MMA Germany Executive Committee member Appsflyer (Ben Jeger, Managing Director, Germany) drew from a real-life case study with KAYAK, presented by Ido Bar-Oz, KAYAK’s Head of Mobile Growth, to underline the pivotal importance of mobile attribution as a means to identify and optimize high performing channels. Coca-Cola, also an MMA Germany Executive Committee Member, excited attendees with a look into the Internet of Things presented by Marlen Ring, who is part of Coca-Cola’s Western Europe Digital Acceleration Team. Richard Harless, Country Manager for Shazam in Germany, and Yasemin Yige, Digital Media Coordinator at Unilever in Germany, treated the audience to a bird’s eye view of Release the Beast, an award-winning campaign for Magnum that used music to inspire and influence brand interaction with stellar results. Instagram’s Nadine Neubauer also engaged the audience with a fun look at what brands can express and achieve using the social media channel to tell compelling stories.