As the first researcher to be named Marketer of the Year by Brandweek Magazine, Todd Cunningham brings more than 25 years of experience leading successful translations of consumer insights into positive business outcomes for Fortune 500 businesses and non-profit organizations.

Senior VP of Viacom’s Corporate Strategic Insights & Research team for the past 5 years, Todd has most recently focused on the avid pursuit of successfully adopting and integrating high-value consumer-centric research tools and methods to generate real business-building opportunities for content experiences on-air, online, on mobile devices, on-demand, social media, etc.

Todd anchored his time at Viacom with a successful 10-year track record overseeing the MTV global Research and Planning internal teams. Under Todd’s leadership, they blazed new trails for media brands by activating ethnographies and early brainwave research to delve into the minds of music trendsetters, unbundled and redefined the target’s sources of cool around the world and created the first-of-its-kind television research inside of virtual worlds. MTV, in turn, developed highly relevant content for their audiences and delivered unprecedented consumer insights to advertisers and distribution partners that provided measureable ROI for their marketing investments.

Todd is nationally recognized for leading research to quantify the value of media engagement and is published in the Journal of Advertising Research.

Todd has been a Futures of Entertainment Fellow since 2010 and was recognized with a 2011 ‘Great Mind Award’ from the Advertising Research Foundation. He serves on the board of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unwanted Pregnancy and is a trusted advisor to the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and other non-profit and industry organizations.

Prior to Viacom, Todd earned his stripes in Account and Brand Planning at DDB Needham, Sterling Brands and Chiat/Day.