How to Get The MadAve Journal's Tim McHale Mad About You

Contact
Tim McHale
Managing Editor
The Madison Avenue Journal, LLC
244 Madison Avenue #482
New York, NY 10016
timmchale01 (AIM)
302-750-1788 cell
mchale@tmajournal.com
http://www.madisonavenuejournal.com

Reach
The MadAve Journal ezine is sent to roughly 2,500 daily subscribers. In addition, their content is dynamically fed to two of their sister sites, Media Buyer Planner and MarketingVox. Collectively, these add another 17,500 readers. Most of their readership is Madison Avenue marketers and some college students.

Circulation
TMA Journal generally publishes three to five times a week. They’ve been known to do a weekend issue, but McHale believes in writing only when they have something to say. “Our reader is overwhelmed with so much. There is a lot of tonnage out there.” Many media companies cover the same stories, but readers don’t need to see every one of them. That’s why TMA Journal skips the news reporting. Instead, they do serious interviews, or “conversations.”

McHale's background
A Baruch College alumnus, McHale began his career at Ogilvy & Mather in 1978. In his career, he has worked with more than 150 B-to-C and B-to-B brands, such as Nike, McDonald’s and British Airways. He has been involved with business development since 1985.

McHale also served on a number of AAAA committees. Besides writing weekly columns for Mediapost.com and iMedia Communications, contributing articles to various trade publications and providing expertise for newspapers, he has co-taught a college advertising course for 10 years.

Current editorial coverage
A joint venture with Watershed Publishing, TMA Journal is an online-only publication offering commentary in a platform for expository analysis. Their look emulates The New York Times’ Web site. It is McHale’s belief that there is no better layout in terms of media than The Times. “Rather than create something with a lot of bells and whistles, it’s actually a very clean read. It’s generally a couple of links to various stories, but one long essay a day.”

The site uses as much visual as writing and covers diverse media, such as television, film, fiction and YouTube. McHale always tries to be aware of the brand that he’s working to support. Since consumers are becoming as sophisticated as Madison Avenue, Madison Avenue has to become even more aware of what consumers’ tastes are.

Best way to pitch McHale
Since he's rarely at his desk, email is the best way to get in touch with McHale. However, follow-up calls to emails and phone calls to his cell phone are fine, too.

Prewritten contributions
McHale is open to receiving submissions for TMA Journal. The most important element he looks for is personality. “We want people to write about their own experience of contemporary culture and how they see marketers operating within it.” The contributor has to be well versed in media, intelligent, creative and have a distinct point of view.

And, don’t forget to have fun with your writing because if you don’t, people are not going to read it. Enthusiasm is not the only priority, however. McHale points out that it’s all about connectivity. “You can have great passion, but if you don’t know how to communicate, it doesn’t matter.”

If you write for MadAve Journal, you won’t be doing any reporting. Their readers don’t want to be told anything because they think they know it all already. “An opinion can be debated, but it can’t really be disputed because it’s essentially your opinion. You can disagree with it. We don’t try to sell anything, and I think that’s a better way to learn.”

TMA Journal is seeking writers who are on the cutting edge of new media. They should be able to help their audience understand how their brand is to evolve. McHale trusts that the lack of a set of rules in the industry indicates that the focus should be on innovation. “We all grew up with fairly linear media and, now, there is a softening between church and state. Church and state is now cat and mouse.”