Launched in 2005, the Visionary Marketer Award recognizes an executive who has powerfully and effectively expanded campaigns from the traditional to include interactive and immersive strategies that service movies or television while also advancing the role of interactive within all marketing. Previous award recipients were New Line and Stradella Road's Gordon Paddison in 2005, Disney-ABC TV's Albert Cheng in 2006, Paramount Picture's Amy Powell in 2007, Showtime's Robert Hayes in 2008, Sony's Dwight Caines in 2009, Fox's Laurel Bernard in 2010 and 20th Century Fox International's Bettina Sherick in 2011.

This year, iMedia is proud to recognize Universal Pictures' SVP of Digital Marketing, Doug Neil. His experience includes managing Universal Pictures' digital campaigns for over 125 films across online, mobile and game platforms including successful initiatives for "The Lorax," "Despicable Me," "Fast Five," "Snow White and The Huntsman," "Bridesmaids" and the upcoming films "Ted" and "Les Miserables."

Congratulations to Doug Neil, iMedia's 2012 Visionary Marketer!

Moviegoers and television watchers today have more choices than at any time in the history of our species; and, darn it, they are exercising those choices.

Just look at the math: until a recent Super Bowl, the largest television audience in history tuned in for the 1983 series finale of "M*A*S*H*" - 50 million viewers, a 77 percent share of the total television audience. During the week of May 7, 2012, you'd need to add up the audiences for "NCIS" (18 million), "Dancing with the Stars" (16.4 million) and "American Idol" (16.5 million) to get to that number (according to Nielsen).

In movies, "Avatar" holds the record as history's most lucrative film, but if you analyze by ticket sales, "Gone with the Wind" eclipses "Avatar" at 202 million tickets sold vs. 97 million (according to Box Office Mojo).

And that's not even taking into account alternative entertainment choices like video games, streaming home video and the internet itself across a widening palette of screens like smart phones and tablets.

In today's insight address, Brad Berens takes us on a high-speed tour of the frenetic modern entertainment audience yesterday, today and tomorrow, and argues that marketers are paying attention to the wrong things in today's cluttered landscape.

Join entertainment powerhouses Funny Or Die and Showtime for a peak behind the curtain of their best joint execution to date. They'll explain the creative process of generating the elusive "viral video" and all that comes with it. So get ready for the world of working with talent, leveraging social media, interpreting results and laughing you asses off.*

*Please note: Funny Or Die nor Showtime are responsible for any lost or stolen asses during this presentation or throughout the iMedia Summit.

Today the web is bringing us entertainment from a wide variety of talent, many of whom are being created and discovered online and defining the channels of the next generation. With YouTube's recent investment in 100 new channels, My Damn Channel and many other video content solutions, the web celebrity influencer has been born!

These influencers draw millions of viewers a day in a very targeted way, creating new business models for sponsors and advertisers to gather, but leveraging their powerful draw as an "earned audience" for brands. When you combine great creative content execution while relating a brand's message to its specific scalable audience, you have a very powerful model. And that devoted fan base keeps giving, helping drive high engagement for brand messages that may never have gotten properly exposed and socializing them in very organic ways.

So how do you evaluate the right influencer and which one is the right one to use for your brand or your content play? Which has the right audience? How do these new celebs really manage their powerful roles as influencers; and what's the right balance of their creative freedom and their commercial value?

Join Tech Catalyst, Lori H. Schwartz as she takes us through this exciting world with a special fire side chat with Dane Boedigheimer, filmmaker, goofball extraordinaire and more commonly known as one of the top video influencers of all time - the "Annoying Orange." Orange has over 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 10 million Facebook fans, and has over 1.1 billion video views total. On top of that, the "Annoying Orange" series premieres on Cartoon Network this June and has a complete line of toys, shirts and other merchandise. Hear some of the secrets behind building a community around original content and charting new ground as an "earned media" influencer and a new broadcast star...and some very smart advice from some very wise fruit!

During this expert presentation, industry pundits will tee up a never before presented, visually stunning Universal Pictures brand impact study as a recent backdrop to discuss where media entertainment brands must move next in order to:

1) Create the most meaningful and memorable moments of surprise and delight across on-the-go consumers

2) Identify and seize the overall market opportunity

3) Face the unique opportunities and challenges specific to entertainment brands

This session will include visionary level dialog infused with prescriptive recommendations from individuals who have been covering the space and responsible for billions of dollars in media and entertainment spend.

The chaotic movie business is finally starting to embrace digital solutions in much broader ways. But there are still challenges for both sides. Approaches and executions traverse every social media channel, turning fans into advocates and hopefully converting the "uninitiated" into fans or at least willing "opening weekend" moviegoers. This former studio marketing executive will present a slice of the movie/digital landscape, including:

• Movie marketing vs. marketing marketing

• Movie info hubs vs. story extension experiences

• Earning digital respect (sequels as a secret weapon)

Join Peter Stougaard as he shares creative case studies and expected trends in the future of movie marketing enhanced by digital.

Veteran entertainment marketer and visionary Gordon Paddison leads a discussion on Sony's approach to marketing and digital innovation with Elias Plishner and Jake Zim – both highly respected in the media and developer community. Recognized thought leaders in their field, Plishner and Zim are fortunate to work with one of the best management teams in the studio system. This candid discussion will explore a successful marketing partnership on some of the biggest blockbusters in entertainment, and tackle how to deploy digital's many great tools. Join us for a conversation between three film marketing experts. You'll be smarter marketers yourselves afterwards!