In 2014, app store charts offered a breath-taking demonstration of brand power. Even Glu, with a strong history of working with brands from the feature phone days, must have been surprised by the incredible impact of applying a Kim Kardashian makeover.

A game that had essentially been released twice before with little impact was turned into a smash-hit earning $43 million in just 3 months.

Elsewhere it’s no accident that the top 50 top grossing is packed with familiar names including Marvel (three games), The Simpsons, Family Guy, WWE, Frozen, DC Comics, with Looney Tunes, Despicable Me, The Lord of the Rings and Top Gear, not far behind.

It’s not just film-brands either of course, PC and console games (Minecraft, FIFA and Football Manager) and celebrity endorsements (see Kate Upton in Game of War) also have strong impact, whilst home grown-franchises from the app store (non-bigger than Angry Birds) continue to thrive.

No wonder then that King, Supercell and others are investing so much on TV and display in their mission to build their games into something more.

Future branding

But will this trend continue? Which mainstream brands will breakthrough? What are the pitfalls of working with celebrities and brand-owners?

These and many more questions will be asked and answered in a dedicated brand-focused section of the East-meets-West track at PG Connects London on 13-14th January.

We’re delighted to welcome some of the biggest brand-owners including representatives of the BBC, the Creative Artists Agency and Warner Bros., those looking to make the best of them including Kabam, Glu and Animoca as well as the companies looking to build their own brands at Seriously and Rovio.

If you want to join them and get the inside track on the future of brands, celebrity endorsements and more in mobile games then you should probably sign up to PG Connects now.

In case that’s not enough, here’s a few reasons to go:

• 6 tracks covering global games publishing, customer acquisition and monetisation, gaming in education and the future technologies and trends
• 3 Indie Developer-centric activities: Big Indie Pitch, Indie Showcase Expo and Indie Survival Guide track
• 100s of delegates waiting to connect via the match-making meeting tool
• 4 Evening networking activities - Pecha Kucha, Drink Up, Dinner and the PG Party 
• 20+ Media representatives including a full PG biz and consumer crew on hand for interviews

Grab your tickets for Pocket Gamer Connects London 2015 here!

Don't forget to keep up-to-date with content from our speakers via the Speaker Spotlight hashtag.

And you can check out videos of our speaker talks from PG Connects Helsinki 2014 here.