A friend of mine told me she had been reading through the MadAve archives and noticed a decided difference in the writing I was doing in the Fall of 2005 and the tone of voice of the current articles. My editor, Angela Glenn, agreed fully and said my writing has always been transparent. Of course she’s my business partner in IAPIA so she doesn’t count as an impartial witness.

In any case, the consensus was that my tone of voice has somehow migrated from day to night. “When you talk about something you care about, rather than something you hate, you’re way more compelling.” That was my friend’s takeaway. But then she writes me off as a “smart ass.”

In either case it has gotten me to take a real good look at my frame of mind as a result of taking on the self-appointed task of “reinventing advertising,” and to question whether I was up to the task.

Now I had an amazing childhood. I started my life in advertising at the age of 11when I did my first work for hire. My father was a newspaper man. I knew I owned what I created, so I could sell it. I was a runaway kid. I rode the rails, stowing away on locomotives. By the time I was 15, I was writing and designing safety posters for America's first billion dollar corporation, the Pennsylvania Railroad. At 19, I was Art Director for Motown Records, with three Corvettes and more money than God. I was unstoppable with the Supremes and Temptations as my older brothers and sisters and the Jackson 5 as my baby cousins. That was my childhood. I was the luckiest teenager in America. At least that was what I thought until my father told me to “stop farting around, and do what I set out to do. Your dreams are worth more than your fancy paycheck. Go to Madison Avenue like you always said you would do.”

At 22, I joined Young & Rubicam on Madison Avenue for the biggest pay cut in history. From $150k at Motown to $8.5k at Y&R NY. It was a great decision in that it allowed me to spend the rest of my life creating some of the most memorable ad campaigns of all time. Of course it took me 10 years to work my way back past $150k. But so what? My work was financing network television.

I was on fire on Madison Avenue. I would do a great campaign, a dark horse candidate; certainly, never the “agency recommendation.” I would get up in front of the folks in charge and bring it to life. Of course that made me a target rather than a Creative Director. Or maybe it was the orange suit I wore in one day. Anyhow I would eventually move on and replay the entire scenario until another award winning campaign would result and…

Finally I decided to grow a mustache. But as luck would have it, they apparently weren’t promoting mustaches to Creative Director that year. I was cool with that. I just put the new award winner on my reel, called Judy Wald, my agent, and said “It’s Time.”

I was now a hired gun with a burning desire to do great work and a knowledge that if I could get one campaign in before the sheep looked up I could up my price ant the next stop. Back then, I had to do great work. Just like the kids that are coming into the business now will tell you "I don't do shit work" and walk out the door and never look back.

Somehow, I’m not driven like the best ad kids are now. And I need to be. That's what has always worked for me. I talked to a young man who is running a brand new program to introduce high school students into Advertising. He was very excited about his new industry and the potential it held; he was the perfect conduit to the next generation. He was also the perfect conduit for the older generation in his effect on my own outlook on my version of what advertising should be. I haven’t been nearly as excited about NeoAdvertising as this young man was about the Traditional Advertising I intended to replace with NeoAdvertising.

WTF is wrong with me? I got to be one of the best practitioners in the creation of network television campaigns in the world, simply because I had no choice but to be best. I was driven every single day to do better than the guy down the hall. And now people are telling me that, “The closer you get to making this NeoAdvertising a reality, the further you get from being able to communicate straight up. Your words have become guarded and tailored to a much narrower sounding objective, (they are) no longer personal or personable.” Damn!

Time to rethink my strategy. After all, the point of NeoAdvertising is to be more engaging to the audience than traditional advertising. If my own tone of voice is becoming less engaging as I go and as Neo Advertising becomes more and more real, then something is amiss. Why am I getting angrier instead of more positive as we move closer to our goal? Could I be tired from all the years of trying to prove my point? Only to find myself back at square one once again? One more time at ground zero. If so, it's time to snap out of it and brace up.

Because it's tie to deliver once more . My friend told me, “All I know is, you have to stand at ground zero by yourself. There is no room for anyone else. Survival mode is lonely.”

But as I look around, there are a number of people standing with me in the dust of the ground floor. People who have seen what advertising has become and know that it can be so much better. These people who bring IAPIA to life every day, know advertising can be worth engaging with instead of ignoring. They inspire my best, not my worst. So this negative, angry shit has to step off right here. Nancy, I'm sorry.

And for all of you reading out there, who have been following these adventures in NeoAdvertising for years. Not days and months...years... I will lighten up. That includes my friend who started this whole kumbaya thing by standing up to me by letting me know I stand alone. and one, that has to go. And that my "angriest dog" act in writing needs to cease and desist.

Advertising needs Reinvention. Not just by me, but by all of you who care about advertising. We were on to something the minute we stopped calling real, live people "Customers" and "Consumers". They are the Audience. We are Reinventing Advertising to serve at the will of the Audience.   Join us. We are reinventing Advertising that means something rather than interrupts something. You can be a part of that.   We are Reinventing Advertising so that it matters. Help us make it happen. We're a lot of laughs. We promise.