• by Kristin Sidorak , February 10, 2006

Matt Scheckner, ringmaster of Madison Avenue's annual Advertising Week celebration, has joined the marketing team of online media giant Yahoo, but will continue to serve as executive director of the ad industry extravaganza.

Scheckner, who has been president-CEO of Empire Sports and Entertainment, and two other employees of the three-person company -Jillian Mellone and Lance Pillersdorf - have joined the Yahoo marketing department with unspecified titles, though he will continue to work as a "loaned executive" running Advertising Week.

Scheckner said the dual role is not that unusual in the ad business, describing it as "a very old concept."

"When Advertising Week season kicks in, in earnest, it's understood that somewhere about one hundred percent of my time will be going to Advertising Week. Yahoo knew this going in, and they wanted this," he said, adding that Yahoo has always been a strong presence in Advertising since its inception more than two years ago. The 2006 event, which takes place Sept. 25-29 in New York City, will be the industry's third, and continues to grow both in terms of number of events and companies participating in sponsorships.

In a related move, O. Burtch Drake, president-CEO of Advertising Week and of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, announced that Yahoo has once again signed up as a "gold tier" sponsor of the event. Drake also announced that Microsoft, a chief rival of Yahoo's, had also renewed as an Advertising Week sponsor and boosted its support to the "gold tier" level, and that Panasonic has signed on at that level, as well.

"Yahoo cares deeply about what happens in the industry, and somewhere they felt my values and thinking would work well," Scheckner said.