http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/business/media/a-winning-start-whets-appetites-at-advertising-week.html 2014-09-30 04:41:47 A Winning Start Whets Appetites at Advertising Week The opening panel at the annual gathering was meant to suggest that success on Madison Avenue could be just as rewarding — and elusive — as success on a field, pitch or gridiron. === THERE are no signs that Martin Sorrell, chief executive of Mr. Sorrell’s skills in leading a panel were on display on Monday as he moderated an opening session of Advertising Week in New York. He deftly elicited quotable remarks from his four panelists, senior executives from Amazon, CBS Interactive, ESPN and Live Nation; asked some penetrating questions; and liberally peppered the proceedings with humor, as when he mocked a lofty introduction of the panel: “Good to know we’re the ‘great minds.’ Good to know we’re so inspirational.” Mr. Sorrell’s stint on stage, which helped start the 11th annual During a discussion of branded content, also known as content marketing or Mr. Sorrell tweaked Ms. Utzschneider about her employer’s might and about its secretive ways. When he declared, echoing Mr. Sorrell said, “I’m not doing it to be mischievous,” and rephrased the question. After receiving a general type of reply from Ms. Utzschneider, he said cheerfully, “I think I should give up.” Branded content was the focus of another session on Monday, featuring executives from two food chains, In the first episode “Our biggest fear,” Ms. Gibson revealed, was that “we’ve never done this before,” but she said that the feeling had been tempered by the naming of “two people from the company” as judges along with the chef Emeril Lagasse, billed as the show’s “menu master,” and the host, Ty Pennington. Mr. Pennington, who joined the executives on the panel, said that making the winning dish available nationally the following day meant that “the viewer can finally get really involved” in a competition series. Restaurants like Chili’s, he added, were “where America, Middle America, is having dinner.” Mr. Pennington is on a lengthy list of celebrities scheduled to appear during this For instance, Katie Couric, now the global news anchor of Yahoo, took part Monday morning in a conversation with Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, during the opening general session of the MIXX Conference 2014, organized by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. (The bureau holds the conference each year during the first two days of Advertising Week.) Then Ms. Couric accompanied Ms. Sandberg to Ms. Sandberg’s next Advertising Week gig, taking a seat in the audience as Ms. Sandberg moderated a panel called “Rethinking Marketing to Women.” After Ms. Sandberg, whose And some commercials on screens inside taxi cabs “resemble soft porn,” she complained, which was “why I end up turning off taxi TV most of the time.” Advertising Week is to continue through Thursday.