The Internet has changed the face of marketing for everybody, but for the Eastman Kodak Company, it also changed the nature of their product line and brand positioning as consumers moved from film cameras to digital cameras, from development costs to free viewing of digital images and relatively inexpensive photo printing, from photos contained in albums on the shelf to photos zooming across the Internet to be shared by a potentially infinite audience. Hear Jeffrey Hayzlett, Kodak's Chief Business Development Officer, VP and head of marketing, tell the story of how the brand embraced change and transformed itself from a 21st-century product into a 21st-century brand experience. You'll get actionable perspectives and strategies that will help you keep your brand relevant in an ever-changing media universe.

Offline. Online. Above the Line. Below the Line. There is no line. Never—in the history of advertising—has the exercise of strategic media planning and buying been so challenging. Digital media and technologies have unleashed a torrent of new advertising platforms while traditional media platforms endure increased scrutiny in an era of performance marketing. The media mix has never been so vast yet so fragmented and the consumer has never enjoyed so much control. It is a perfect storm of complexity and if the digital revolution hasn’t already caused enough anxiety, the threat of an economic slowdown and reduced advertising budgets also loom. For media professionals, the good news is that it has never been such an exciting time to be on the buy-side. Across most digital platforms, marketers and their agency partners are limited only by their imagination while many traditional media platforms are becoming more measurable (albeit slowly). Not to be forgotten, search has taken the advertising industry by storm and shows no sign of slowing its siphoning of advertising dollars from all other media. So, what are planners, buyers and brand managers to do? This session brings together leading agency and client-side media professionals to discuss how they view the emerging landscape and how they are allocating dollars in the new media mix.

The definition of interactive continues to change. Digital is no longer a fixed medium, but is now making its way out of the home and the office into new venues and devices. With this evolution, opportunities are beginning to emerge in categories such as telematics, radio frequency tagging, home mobility and digital out-of-home (OOH), to name a few. The Interpublic Emerging Media Lab will facilitate an engaging panel discussion on the latest in marketing innovation, including hands-on demonstrations and a range of case studies.

How are leading media and entertainment companies looking at the evolving distribution landscape and taking advantage of multi-platform opportunities in an era where content can be distributed via broadcast and cable, online, through podcast and vidcasts, via mobile devices and across multiple on-demand platforms? And how does the wave of consumer generated content fit into this picture? How will programming evolve in a multi-platform universe and how will advertising fit into a content universe of short-form, medium-form and long-form content across a range of platforms devices? It’s a fluid and dynamic landscape and this session brings together leading executives from across the industry to look at the current and future landscape of media and entertainment in the digital era.

Search advertising is predicted to hit $16 billion by 2011; so where is the growth coming from? Who’s going to be buying which flavor of search ad products next year? Search marketers struggle to embrace non-performance media being sold search-style as auctioned media, while traditional advertisers and agencies have yet to fully maximize search but control the budgets for TV, radio and print. With predictions that video advertising will hit $7.5 billion and contextual advertising will hit $4.5 billion by 2012, come and explore the opportunities and realities of current contenders in the category of “the next big thing.” Hear representatives from major search engines and major brands discuss the buy and sell side of innovation, exploring issues of technology, budgets and integration.

Digital video across multiple platforms is transforming all media and the business of marketing communications. Content providers and media companies have an array of new development opportunities across a variety of platforms, and advertisers and creative directors are faced with a seemingly endless stream of new and, in some cases, unproven forms of video-based advertising inventory. Buyers, sellers and producers of online video are excited about the emerging landscape but also keen to move beyond the pre-roll and explore new formats and continue to drive innovation. In addition to the new marketing opportunities, the video era has also introduced a fresh set of complex technical and workflow-related challenges with regard to conceptualizing, producing, delivering and measuring the performance of video-based content and advertising. Moderated by Television Week and Webvideoreport.com Editor Greg Baumann, this session provides creative professionals, buyers, marketers and producers with valuable insight on how to optimize creative production, development and resource allocation in the digital video age.

Digital media and technologies continue to impact all media and the entire business of marketing communications. And advertising agencies are not immune to the influence of the digital revolution. In addition to the established traditional creative and media services agencies, a new raft of agencies have emerged, looking to shake up the status quo. As a result, the strategic relationship with the client is up for grabs and agencies, regardless of their pedigree, with the best ideas and an ability to execute will be victorious. Yet, these developments have led to more questions than answers: Will the industry re-bundle? Should it? What will happen to the large, traditional creative shops? How are agencies successfully delivering integrated campaigns? How do agencies evolve their staffing priorities and compensation models? What is the point-of-view of the client? The entire media and advertising industry is in flux and re-aligning for the future. As this core trend accelerates, how will the agency landscape evolve and what agencies are best positioned to lead world-class brands into the digital future?

Our industry is once again booming, with companies being acquired for many hundreds of millions of dollars and stock prices of the industry leaders are heading into the stratosphere. In this session, we help you sort through the noise to look at the spectrum of public companies, the mergers and acquisition landscape and the key strategic and tactical trends for the business of digital marketing in 2008 and beyond. Moderated by top-ranked analyst Imran Khan of JP Morgan & Chase, Co., this panel of experienced, senior executives from the worlds of media, advertising, venture capital and Wall Street shares their insight and predictions about the current state and future of the Internet economy.

Not long ago, social network marketing meant creating profiles and collecting friends. But those measures are already considered quaint. Facebook is harnessing users’ social interactions to spread ad messages virally. MySpace is targeting advertising based on personal profiles. But social network marketing keeps changing. Widgets put advertising in the hands of the consumer, “open” profiles mean social networking is no longer confined to a destination site and social commerce adds a word-of-mouth twist to online shopping. eMarketer Senior Analyst Debra Aho Williamson lays out the landscape of social network advertising now and in the near future, with a short presentation about social network ad spending and audience behavior. Then, Debra leads a panel of social networking, agency and marketing experts in a discussion, full of real-world examples, about what works and doesn’t work, how advertising on social networks is changing and the best practices for moving forward.

One of the original promises of the Internet was geographically relevant and targeted content for all. Local marketing strategies are effective and have widespread application, yet many marketers have yet to gain a solid understanding of the marketplace. In this session, we’ll provide an update on the local and mobile landscapes today and what you can expect to see in the future. You’ll also get practical advice on best practices for reaching out to consumers using local marketing tactics with Internet and mobile platforms.

From high-definition and multi-platform programming to the on-demand universe of DVRs, TiVo, Slingbox, and others, television is being catapulted by technology into a whole new world where it can be consumed anytime, anywhere and on any device. Our TV 3.0 experts delve into the theory and research behind consumer’s new TV consumption habits and look at how leading broadcasters are taking advantage of the multi-platform landscape in an era where media can be distributed via broadcast and cable, through podcasts and vidcasts and on-demand via multiple platforms, including mobile. How are viewers watching television and what are their attitudes towards new forms of programming and advertising? This session looks at how these collective tectonic shifts are affecting the overall value proposition of television advertising in a multi-platform world.

Welcome to the era of performance marketing. Digital media, platforms and technologies continue to be enhanced by increasingly focused targeting capabilities and this has captured the interest of the buy-side community. The industry continues to strive to deliver the holy grail of advertising—true one-to-one messaging—but over the past few years, marketers and their media partners have executed highly-targeted campaigns that successfully deliver on the “one-to-few” marketing promise. More recently, terms such as demographic, experiential, psychographic and behavioral targeting have entered the industry’s lexicon and reflect standard practices in the targeting ecosystem. But what are the emerging key advancements for targeting and what is next? Where does video fit within the world of targeting? How do key players in the industry feel about the targeting abilities of the various emerging mobile platforms? And how does the industry handle the issue of privacy as the government seems poised to engage more proactively in the affairs of digital media? Join leading buy-side and sell-side industry leaders in a discussion of current and emerging trends and best practices as it relates to targeting, personalization and precision marketing.

Digital technologies and platforms are constantly changing the publishing landscape. Media companies are finding that their competition is no longer a defined set of traditional players requiring them to continue to identify new and compelling profitable revenue streams. And new-breed publishers must also continue to evolve and innovate as traditional publishers get hip to the point and increasingly offer compelling, multi-platform content and advertising opportunities. The competition is fierce and the stakes are high, and this panel brings together executives from traditional media companies and new breed publishers to talk about their content and technology offerings and the evolving advertising value proposition in this emerging marketplace.

Certain fundamental changes in the way we design for the Web have occurred in the past 2 years. From changes in audience behavior—the rise of social networks, blogging, serious collaborative processing, consumer production—to hard-core programmatic and infrastructure issues (e.g., AJAX, open-source, mobility, bandwidth), there's never been a more difficult, or exciting, time to be a designer than now. This dynamic and interactive session will explore the edges of the design world as we discuss how to evaluate, learn and adopt advanced techniques—or not. Bored with creative? Come to this session.

Some brand marketers complain that the sites where they like to advertise are always out of inventory, but if you suggest that marketers can find new or equivalent audiences by using an ad network with its impressive reach and optimization technologies, their eyes widen in alarm. Is this anxiety justified? Ad networks have come a long way since the dreary days of remnant inventory and pure DR ads during the dotpocalypse... or have they? Join this star-studded and audience-interactive session with representatives from Yahoo!, AOL's Platform-A and Specific Media on the ad network side, along with a top-flight media buyer from ICON and the senior digital marketer from ConAgra. We'll dig into the costs of transparency, the benefits of a smaller site list, how behavioral targeting changes the game and more. Come with questions!

Brands continue to compete for the ultimate eyeball and looking to build loyalty amongst their customers. And as the consumer becomes increasingly elusive, how do leading marketers decide when and where to place their marketing bets in a progressively digital world? Are certain devices and outlets more effective at lifting brand exposure? Can search drive brand awareness? How are consumers interacting with various forms of media and how do they influence each other and overall consumer behavior? Hear a panel of leading brands discuss their views on the emerging digital consumer and current advertising landscape and how they leverage their marketing dollars to positively impact consumer behavior and drive acquisition, brand equity and lifetime customer value.

Video is all the rage and is transforming the businesses of digital media and marketing. Content providers and media companies have an array of new development opportunities across a variety of platforms, and advertisers and agencies are faced with many new forms of video-based inventory. In addition to new opportunities for innovation and creative breakthroughs, the video era has also introduced a new set of complex technical and workflow-related challenges in regards to conceptualizing, planning, buying, producing, delivering and measuring video-based content and advertising. This session will look at the state of online video from a media planning and buying perspective and will show examples of how brands are taking advantage of the video environment to better connect with consumers.

As online marketing choices diversify (search, display, mobile, CGM, etc.), marketers are constantly presented with an array of exciting new opportunities to target, reach and engage with their customers. However, the monumental and sobering challenge of simply understanding all these moving parts is an equally powerful reality-check for marketers, agencies, publishers and their vendor partners. More specifically, trying to measure the effectiveness and performance of both old and new media, individually as well as collectively, is the single-largest challenge that marketers face. The buy-side is in search of a universal new media currency that can quantify the value and performance of emerging media but this currency must be based on a universally-agreed upon set of metrics and methodologies. We are far from achieving these standards but the landscape is evolving rapidly and some best practices have clearly emerged. How can currency metrics emerge when the medium itself is in constant flux? This panel of leading analysts, marketing and media professionals will explore current and emerging techniques used to measure performance in an increasingly digital, multi-platform world and talk specifically about their preferred “currency” strategies and explain how they ultimately utilize measurement tools and metrics to quantify the performance and ROI of their marketing efforts.

$60 billion is spent annually on US TV advertising, yet the most desirable demographic—young males—spend more time playing videogames than watching the boob tube, and other demographics are starting to follow. Ad dollars are now shifting to reach the gamers, and many providers are emerging to help connect brands to the audiences playing games. The gaming business is a $24 billion behemoth. This session provides market intro (size, growth rate, demographics), a survey of platforms (PC, console, handheld, mobile) and games (FPS, RTS, MMORPG, sports, etc.) available, and will take a look at whether marketers and buyers see a value proposition and how buyers and sellers are working together to define and realize success in regards to performance and ROI.

The online video revolution is underway. Are you prepared? Spending by US marketers on online video ads continues to grow at double-digit rates with spending on such ads to top $4 billion by 2011. In addition to teens and young adults, Gen X’ers, boomers and even seniors are gravitating to video sites. The battle continues between user generated content sites, such as YouTube and Heavy.com, and traditional broadcast and cable networks, all of which are scrambling to place their professional video content online. In this fast-paced, information-intensive session, eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey whizzes through the numbers to provide valuable insight into the current online video landscape and address key issues and challenges.

In this session, you'll hear from experts on Buzz Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Social Networks discussing the marketing value of their respective channels. You will also discover why digital marketers should be investing first in their own tactics and channels before they look at others. And we want your opinion: This highly interactive Exchange Series session will be moderated by Chris Marriott, who will represent the highest ROI digital tactic—email marketing. Who will survive Thunderdome? Come and find out.

For those marketers who’ve been around the block a bit, many will remember the groundbreaking book “Relationship Marketing” by Regis McKenna. While the discipline had existed for decades, Mr. McKenna ushered in a new era of marketing by coining this now ubiquitious phrase. But as the Internet and other sexy new digital platforms came to the fore, relationship marketing fell out of favor and was put back in the box of direct marketing. Yet, as we sit at the tail end of Internet 2.0, the digital revolution has ushered in a new era of relationship marketing. Consumers now have unprecedented control over their media consumption and now have the ability to be content creators as the costs of production spiral towards zero. Consumers have become increasingly elusive and demanding and marketers have to work harder than ever before to target, reach, and establish a dialogue with their consumers. The “relationship” with consumers has never been more important and marketing has become an exercise in brand dialog and is no longer a one-way communiqué. The fight is on and perfecting the art of relationship marketing has evolved into trench warfare. John Stichweh of Critical Mass leads a engaging panel of experts to discuss how marketers can leverage digital media and technologies to enhance their marketing efforts by leveraging targeted, addressable advertising inventory and rely on proven personalized marketing disciplines such as email and database marketing to build a high-impact, results-oriented relationship marketing platform for the digital age.

How do you make your mobile ads relevant to the consumers you’re trying to reach? How can publishers and advertisers work together to target the mobile audience? Should consumers “opt-in” or can advertisers develop non-intrusive, highly targeted advertising that consumers will readily accept? What mobile formats (e.g., WAP, SMS/messaging, banner ads) will pave the way in 2008 and beyond? And how will new offerings, such as rewarding consumers who view mobile advertisements with additional airtime or prize drawings, fare in the current advertising landscape? Join this panel of experts to learn the truth about mobile advertising as well as what other strategies can be employed for success.

Leading Left Coast creative directors showcase a cross section of innovative digital and integrated work for multiple clients and discuss the strategy behind each campaign and the related pieces that supported the work. Learn from these creative directors about how to inspire and harness the big idea in an increasingly digital world dominated by fragmenting media and attention spans. What customer insights and trends spark new ideas? How do leading creative directors factor in evolving trends such as on-demand media and user generated content when developing campaigns? This is the place to be to see the latest examples of strategic and tactical creative thinking and execution.

In this rapidly emerging multi-platform universe, the opportunities to create innovative and compelling marketing campaigns are seemingly endless. Marketers have the opportunity to reach new and more refined audiences with new forms of creative and branded sponsorships, and media companies have a wealth of new platforms and resulting content and advertising inventory models to offer their marketing partners. With this opportunity comes the major challenge of prioritization, execution and go-to market capabilities. In this session, two sets of presenters will discuss how they approached strategy, development and execution for their innovative, new multi-platform initiatives. Specifically, they’ll address how they managed internal teams and external vendors to conceptualize and deliver successful content into the marketplace and how they delivered on the advertising value proposition for their clients.

In the dynamic and fluid world of new media and consumer control, the industry is often focused on “the next big thing.” Staying on the cutting-edge of this new digital age is critical to creating time with customers in a media fragmented world. Though traditional marketing techniques are still crucial, marketers must learn to integrate these with next-generation digital to converse and engage customers, nurture and grow relationships and drive results. And although platforms and technologies such as online video, mobile and social networking will continue to gain traction in the future, leading marketers and their agency partners are leveraging integrated marketing solutions to optimize qualified lead generation and customer acquisition and maximize the lifetime value of its existing customers. This panel brings together executives from first-tier brands and marketing services agencies to discuss the current and future landscape of customer relationship management.

The increasing prevelance of digital signage, embedded screens, projected interfaces and kiosks presents a range of new considerations and opportunities for both advertisers and consumers. The era of the “Fourth Screen” is upon us and poised to radically alter both advertiser and consumer perception of what digital media is and what purpose it serves in daily life. The addition of dynamic distribution and targeting, interactivity and clever placement to these new Fourth Screen experiences via touch, gesture and even mobile phones stands to create the most immersive, engaging and powerful media environment ever created. What are the considerations for advertisers and agencies in the digital out of home world of tomorrow? What will succeed and what will fail with consumers? Are marketers gaining traction and seeeing results today and what kind of metrics can we use to gauge this exciting new media opportunity?

We've never had as much access to real-time, in-depth data about what customers think and how they behave in an increasingly multi-platform, integrated world as we do today. And despite this increase in data, consumers have never seemed so elusive nor has it ever been more challenging to translate data about those consumers into insight and apply that insight to decision-making that translates into in-market results. Leading customer insight practitioners will share how they are handling key customer insight challenges.

Is 2008 the year that mobile marketing takes off, and if so, are you positioning yourself ahead of the competition or are you already behind the curve? Attend this primer to understand how mobile can be best utilized to help brands define their mobile strategy. Join a mobile marketing and branding consultant, a mobile marketing agency, and a brand marketer as they share the basics of moving your marketing efforts to the mobile front.

The revelation that the consumer is in control is shocking to few in the business of media and advertising. However, despite this disclosure, it seems to be business as usual for buyers and sellers. With varying forms of on-demand capabilities, programming and consumption on the rise (VOD, DVRs, satellite radio, etc.), many believe the media companies and advertisers that rely on any form of time-sensitive audience aggregation will be in for a very rude awakening when the on-demand universe experiences its own tipping point. On-demand technologies and programming reinforce an expectation amongst consumers to have the ability to either eliminate advertising or at least dictate when they are receptive to accepting messages while consuming media. So, what is a media company or an advertiser to do? This session illuminates the realities of the on-demand media universe and how specific pods of advertising inventory are being affected as well as showcase innovative new solutions that weave advertising and messaging into this new frontier of media consumption.

Get all the facts you need about podcasting, vidcasting and portable media. Find out who is listening, what they want to hear and how they spend their time. You'll learn the definition of "downloadable media," how many consumers are currently enjoying portable content and who the biggest market players and media providers are, both from a network perspective as well as top independent shows. Get an update on the podcast audience--The Podcast Consumer Revealed III: The evolving podcast market and its implications for advertisers and media planners by Edison Media provides attendees with exclusive access to the third edition of this study and a complete analysis of the growing podcast audience, including the composition, consumption habits, wants and needs of podcast consumers as well as previously unreleased data on the reach, effectiveness and power of podcast advertising. Get an overview of various forms of advertising and sponsorship through a showcase of some of the most impressive campaigns in the market. And you'll learn how to create your own podcast and why that might make sense for your brand or corporation. In addition, you'll learn about creating community with your audience if you "roll your own" show. Walk away with all you need to buy a campaign in downloadable media or create your own show.

Online retail sales in the US will reach $155.8 billion this year, up 19% over 2007, according to eMarketer. Most of this growth will be driven not by new buyers, but by veteran online buyers who are spending more of their budgets online. The latest digital technologies and services offer retailers exciting opportunities to “engage” with prospects and customers in new and profitable ways. Tools such as online video, blogs, podcasts, social networks, search, word-of-mouth and other digital strategies help you to connect with consumers, and your best customers in ways that will enhance your brand image like never before. Come learn how leading marketers and service firms are using the latest techniques to drive down customer acquisition costs and enhance the lifetime value of new and existing customers.

The Green Revolution is underway. It is simply good business for brands to enhance their green credentials and digital media and platforms let marketers directly connect with current and prospective customers to achieve this business objective. Yet brands must also be aware that the digital consumer landscape is transparent, brutally honest and unforgiving and marketers must take great care not to appear to be making gratuitous or half-baked efforts to establish or enhance their green credentials. Led by Clare Munn of The Communication Group, this Exchange Series session will invite you into a engaging conversation about how marketers can leverage digital media and technologies to effectively become a part of the Green Revolution while avoiding the landmines of consumer resentment and revolt.

Leading search expert Bruce Clay returns to moderate this session on search engine optimization (SEO). There are many questions about SEO, and you will often get different answers based upon who you ask. This session offers three perspectives: an end user wanting top ranking for his or her many properties, a top SEO company providing services to outrank competitors, and a search engine (Google) discussing what not to do. Each speaker gives a brief presentation on these topics, followed by an extended Q&A session with the audience. This is an advanced discussion covering several points of view on how SEO can be accomplished and it should not be missed. Arrive early as this session is always standing-room only.

There has been an evolution. Multicultural marketing is no longer new; it is not an add-on nor should it have a one-dimensional approach. The multicultural market, driven by US Hispanics, is becoming the new majority. This market is not only growing, it is becoming increasingly complex. In 2007, the US Hispanic online market grew 12% vs. 6% growth in the overall US online market. Savvy marketers are already targeting this opportunity, but to do so effectively, a strategic approach is crucial. Issues of acculturation, the lines between distinct segments have blurred and the ethnic population is no longer concentrated in just the major markets. The digital and new-media world is greatly affecting communications targeted to multicultural segments and, in many cases, US Hispanic consumers tend to over-index when it comes to online media consumption and other key usage benchmarks. This panel of experts provides insight on how marketers can best make use of digital communications to target and reach the US Hispanic market--what's working, what's worth experimentation and what's hype.

In a digital marketing environment where you can no longer buy share of voice on a handful of networks, cable channels, mainstream periodicals, radio or important outdoor billboards, content has become increasingly more important. To further complicate matters, the old content delivery model has been turned on its head and the rules of engagement have changed. The consumer is now both reacting to advertising and creating it in real time and has become an inextricable part of the process. In addition to massive, unabated media fragmentation driven by an explosion of commercial and consumer generated media, consumers now have unprecedented control over how and when they consume media as well as whether they choose to engage with advertising and messaging. Agencies will either learn how to scale creative output to extend to multiple platforms and/or better engage consumers as both a channel and/or a content creation engine. With this new paradigm, brand advertisers need to gain more trust in consumers, as advocates and ambassadors but also as partners in the creation of the right content experiences. This panel offers perspectives and insights on how you can target, reach and engage a consumer nation that is taking control and likes their new-found sense of power.

Advertisers have wanted to know the true, full impact of their ads across media since they began buying them. And today, as advertisers shift their spending in response to fragmenting media, changing consumer habits and corporate demands for high, verifiable ROI, they need to understand and optimize their media plans more than ever before. With the onset of digital, we've come far since John Wanamker lamented that he didn't know which half of his advertising is wasted, but how far exactly? To what extent can cross-media advertisers today know how well their ads are working? How much of the needed data is available and usable? How good are today's analytic techniques, such as media mix modeling, at gleaning from that data the full impact? Do they give too much credit to the last click (and call), underestimating the effect of brand-building exposures? Can they reveal the impact of word-of-mouth? Are there better tools on the horizon? Will true optimization have to wait until all media goes digital? In this session, leading cross-media optimizers describe what's possible now and what's to come.

With so much focus these days on social media and changing consumer habits, the line between what’s advertising and what’s content continues to blur. Widgets and gadgets play an important role in these social circles and extend the opportunity for marketers to expand their audience and build brand by reaching core demographics and key influencers. Join Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research as he leads a discussion with major stakeholders who represent the social platforms, the research and analytics, the solutions for building and deploying these mini-applications and the brands that are testing these waters. Come learn about the types of widgets and gadgets (e.g., start page, desktop, social media), the platforms they run on (e.g., mobile, TV, gaming) and the interactive content that’s turning traditional online advertising on its head. Then, go a step further to understand the value of incorporating widgets and gadgets into your marketing plan and monetizing your efforts.

As traditional advertising dollars face new threats, an unlikely savior is found in digital agencies. This panel discusses how mobile technology becomes the ultimate direct-response mechanism, making once-static traditional media both interactive and measurable. Case examples show how mobile is being integrated with print, broadcast and out-of-home ads, injecting new value. Traditional media offers much greater mass-market reach and discovery of your mobile presence than mobile banner ads and drives consumers to a mobile application or site with specific calls to action—not just a top-level URL. Thus, mobile becomes the long tail, persisting well beyond the viewing of an ad. By activating traditional ads through mobile "short codes" and key words, an increasing number of mobile projects will be funded from traditional media budgets, not just digital or mobile budgets. By delivering immediate ROI to traditional ads, mobile breathes new life into an otherwise sagging media.

Many of us are either familiar with or members of interactive marketing associations (IMAs). Who participates and who needs to? How are these groups engaging their traditional counterparts? How do they stay relevant to the communities they serve? What are the missions of these groups and how are they similar or different from market to market? Representatives from four major US digital marketing associations will share their thoughts and experience regarding how these groups work, on their own and together with others, to advance the digital marketing industry and their thoughts on the key challenges and opportunities for all of us in 2008.

Scot McLernon will moderate a panel discussion and interactive town-hall meeting on topics that will include:

• How is the job description for the Digital Seller likely to change in the coming months and years?
•Given the escalating cost of digital sales talent, what new people sources are being tapped?
•What are the tips on retaining your best people?

Upstream Group will also be sharing some findings from a survey conducted among digital sellers that identifies the “flight risks” of your sales team.

Given the reality of today’s empowered consumer, marketers are faced with the challenge of adapting approach and managing effective communications, simultaneously. Learn how you can harness this energy to develop high-performance email marketing programs. Email is the strongest tool for cultivating relationships with your customers. Examine case studies from two of the industry’s key practitioners, and engage with two thought leaders, in what will prove to be a valuable session designed to provide a balance between actionable next steps and a vision for Email 2.0.

This session for the more advanced online marketer explores new tactical approaches to leverage the unique features of the Web beyond standard IAB units placed blindly across ad networks. As CPMs rise and inventory becomes tight among the portals and top 100 properties, advertisers are sliding into midsize Websites—following users who are spending less time at the big sites and more time within the mid-tail of the online ecosystem. Site-specific creative integration, including product placement, advertorial, reskins, takeovers, contests, promotions, video, etc., is evolving toward a standard toolbox of go-to market and optimization tactics that engage passionate users and contribute to word-of-mouth on and offline. But, as new tactics address emerging needs for widgets, mobile markets and more, consistent pricing and metrics for success lag behind. This session looks beyond reach and frequency, beyond CPMs and clickthroughs, and features discussion and debate about effective measures for engagement that are as varied as the creative campaigns they seek to quantify. It is time for the industry to transcend the conventional wisdom of the network buy and look deep into the mid- and long tail to find opportunities for true consumer engagement.

Content publishers and advertisers know they need to consider how consumer demand influences site content as well as the mix, approach and the plan of any media placements. However, it can often seem a mystery as to how exactly to define, monitor, and rate consumer intent; and then know how to factor that data into your strategies. Join industry pioneer David Smith, CEO of Mediasmith—and some of The Internet Oldtimers Foundation’s elite members—in an engaging, interactive setting to discuss how consumer intent should influence the strategy, execution and optimization strategies of both content publishers and advertisers alike.

Buying online ads? Selling online ads? Managing online campaigns? Wondering if your online campaigns are working? Frustrated by the different ways media KPIs (key performance indicators) can be measured and wondering which ones are the most important? This training session will help both buyers and sellers better understand the metrics of online advertising. Learn about different ad measurement scenarios and review how success is determined, depending on campaign objectives. This class will teach both sellers and buyers the best techniques for planning and achieving success with online media. The training will also teach about online advertising metrics, how ads are delivered and measured, what to measure when running branding or direct response campaigns, as well as post-click and post-awareness conversions. Leave this session with a better understanding of online measurement and how to make your campaigns perform better. The attendees will also receive access to educational resource materials for learning more about online media and digital marketing.