martin sorrellWPP chief Martin Sorrell this morning kicked off the opening session of Advertising Week at The Stage, which is the auditorium of the New York Times headquarters.

Introduced as the "King of Advertising," Sorrell served as moderator of a discussion with advertising "visionaries" from the world of sports and tech ecosytems,

With all due respect to panelists Jim Lanzone, CEO of CBS Interative; Russell Wallach, president of Live Nation Media & Sponsorship; Lisa Utzschneider, VP global ad sales at Amazon Media Group, and Eric Johnson, executive VP-global multimedia sales at ESPN, Sir Martin should have been in the spotlight. He's the heavyweight.

While the panelists were informative and even a tad combative with Sorrell (e.g, Utzschneider), the audience wanted to hear from The King. He opened the session with a promise of a quick take on things, but then slid into full moderation mode. During the brief Q&A session from the audience, one conference goer addressed a WPP inquiry to its chief. He quickly swatted it away, saying he was moderator, not panelist.

Sorrell is the most eloquent and well-informed representative of the ad/PR sector. His commentary in WPP's annual and financial reports is pure gold.

WPP's last interim financial report include allusions to "grey swans" (known unknowns) and black swans (unknown unknowns) in the geopolitical world such as a China/BRICs hard or soft landing, Sino/Japanese tensions over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, conflicts in Iraq and Gaza, UK's membership in the European Union and other global flashpoints. He offers a head-spinning tour of the world. One would be hard pressed to find such pearls (or any pearl) in Omicom's cut and dried reports. An update from Sorrell would have been more preferable to the panel discussion.

The Advertising Week gala is expected to attract 100,000 people to its Sept. 29 to Oct. 3 schedule packed with 300 events. The event is simply the place to be.

Advertising Week will feature A-Listers like Interpublic CEO Michael Roth, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, MDC Partners boss Miles Nadal, Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, Facebook COO Sharyl Sandberg, Cablevision CEO Jim Doan and DJ musician & producer Funkmaster Flex.

Venues included BB King Blues Club, Friar's Club, Terminal 5, Stella 34 at Macy's, Gotham Comedy Club, Liberty Theater, Highline Ballroom, Del Posto, NASDAQ Marketsite, Adara Stage at Hard Rock, Microsoft Stage and Le Bernardin Prive.

I'm looking forward to a Thursday dialog between Publicis Group CEO Maurice Levy and AOL chief Tim Armstrong. It's a safe Bet Sorrell will be there to catch-up with his French nemesis. A one-on-one between Sorrell and Levy would be a real show stopper.