L'Oréal Paris will announce in New York today the first recipients of an honor the company is sponsoring--the Women of Worth Award--at an event called the CNN Inspire Summit. It will be the first
production of the new CNN Events division, which will put on marketer-sponsored panels, conferences and meetings about newsmaking and newsworthy subjects. Although the events will not be televised on
CNN, the network's reporters and anchors will serve as speakers and moderators.
A second CNN event, planned for next month, will focus on small business and will be sponsored by UPS. Larry
Bloomenkranz, vice president for brand management, advertising and sponsorships at U.P.S., says its event will allow the company to interact with some of its small business customers in "the
experiential realm." The division is under the auspices of the sales department.
Todd Gitlin, a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, acknowledges that many
of the people attending events sponsored by marketers are sophisticated enough to be "making allowances" for the sponsorships. But he wonders if they will be "getting the lite version" of a
contentious or provocative subject, or if the advertisers influence who appears on a panel or the topic discussed. Carol Hamilton, president and general manager for the L'Oréal Paris division of
L'Oréal USA in New York, says the event her company was sponsoring "is not commercial," and its participation is "contextually appropriate.
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