Who We Are

A group of people with various backgrounds that work together to transform their client’s ability to use digital media, so that their programs will strategically capitalize on their inherent superiorities on the internet.

A team that insists on staying proactive on the ever-changing media landscape, who partner with clients and creative providers to create innovation.

A bunch of friends who know who we are. We’re MAC.

In 2002, as Chief Media Officer of Tribal DDB, the most creative agency in the world, Tim McHale serviced clients such as Pepsi, American Airlines and McDonald’s among others on how their organization could capitalize on the ever-increasing advantages that the net offered. McHale sensed there was a business opportunity in helping companies stay ahead of how consumer media habits were changing.  Madison Avenue Consultants was established to provide counsel and guidance to those companies which believed that marketing and media programs should integrate digital media into their on-going programs.  He was right.

Today MAC clients include advertisers, sponsors and content contributors have included such companies as Forbes.com, The Atlantic Monthly, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Tribeca Films, the New York Film Festival, MAD MEN, The New York Times, ad:tech, EyeWonder, Innovate Ads, Revenue Science, Tacoda, Grandparents.com, Phd, Virgin Mobile, DPAC, the IAB, Special Opps Media, Carat, WhenU, SFM Entertainment, Nitro Group, Sling Media, Mediasmith, Ayzenberg, MRM and Ignite, among others.

Tim McHale, Managing Partner

With a 19 year background in traditional marketing and 7 years in Interactive and marketing to date, McHale is best known for his proactive leadership role in integrated marketing. A self-described “Media Activist,” as co-founder/managing partner of Madison Avenue Consultants and MadAve Journal Publisher, he is responsible for the day to day operations of the two LLC’s

Tim has planned media and serviced over 150 B2C and B2B Brands, such as Procter and Gamble, McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch, Intel, MCI, Nike, Starbucks, British Airways, General Motors, Isuzu, American Airlines, Warner Bros., General Foods, Philip Morris, JC Penney, Exxon-Mobil and AOL among others.

McHale was co-founder and Chief Media Officer of Tribal DDB Worldwide, a separate division of DDB Worldwide (Omnicom). According to The New York Times, he was the first Interactive professional on Madison Avenue to be appointed to this title, representing the increased importance of media in the agency equation.

While at Tribal, he managed a 50+ person staff across 7 offices. He launched Tribal Connections, Tribal’s global interactive CRM and strategy group. Before joining DDB, he was EVP, Director of Strategic Planning and Development at i-Traffic, a division of Agency.com (also Omnicom), also leading their business development efforts. Before forming Madison Avenue Consultants, McHale was co-founder and CEO of Underscore Marketing. Tim began his career as an intern at Ogilvy & Mather. He can be reached at tim@madavecon.com.

Jim Hedleston, Managing Partner

A 20+ year veteran in media and marketing. Before co-founding Mad Ave con & MAC VIDEO NY, Jim was Vice President, Global Media & Content Distribution for American Expresswhere he worked in the New York office in various advertising roles for 10+ years.

During that time, Jim launched Amex’s award-winning Rewarding Lives campaign featuring which continues to this day. In his role in Global Media he managed the company’s media and marketing campaigns for all brands. He spearheaded the launch of many brand and product initiatives, including the launch of the highly successful “Blue Card” where he briefly relocated to the companies Sydney, Australia office to oversee it’s international launch.

Jim won the 2000 AMEX Chairman’s Award for the Blue Advertising Launch. He was also Advertising Age’s Media Maven for 2006 for his work in New Media - which naturally featured video in a prominent media role for American Express.

Before joining American Express, Mr. Hedleston was Director, National Broadcast at Busch Media, Anheuser-Busch in-house media shop. Joining the company as a Field Media Account Executive working in New York, Los Angeles, St Louis and Houston, TX. Jim was then transferred back to New York in 1991 where he took on national broadcast and responsibilities for all national television media expenditures.

During his time at A-B he helped launch various Budweiser, Michelob and Busch brand line extensions and played an active role in the day to day management of Busch Media Group. Before leaving to go to American Express, he was transferred back to New York to manage Busch’s $400-million + annual media investments in television, including all the companies year-long sports programs.

Jim began his career at Rosenfeld Sirowitz & Lawson where he worked with Tim McHale on McDonald’s, among other brands. Mr. Hedleston and his wife Theresa live in Connecticut. He is an avid sailor. He is a graduate of the University of Florida.  He can be reached at jim@madavevideony.com

Kurt Brokaw, Culture Editor

Kurt spent 30 years on Madison Avenue as a writer and creative supervisor at Grey Advertising, Cunningham & Walsh, Benton & Bowles, and McCann-Erickson. His accounts included P&G, General Foods, Drackett, Texaco, American Home Products, The U.S. Navy, Heublein, Gordon’s Gin, Van Heusen, Buick, MGM, and RCA Records.

He also organized and staffed RCA’s first in-house agency as creative director of advertising/sales promotion for all of the label’s artists, working with David Bowie, Lou Reed, Elvis Presley, Jefferson Airplane, The Guess Who, John Denver, Waylon Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Townes Van Zandt and Chet Atkins. On the agency side he wrote the Texaco campaign with Jack Benny in all media for four years, and created ads for other show business legends including George Burns and Harry Blackstone, Jr.

Since 1986 Kurt has taught “All About Advertising” to undergrads, grad students and working professionals at New School University in New York City. His classes welcome guest specialists like media entrepreneurs Wendy McHale and Tim McHale as well as Stephanie Blackwood, co-founder of the leading gay/lesbian agency, Double Platinum. Kurt also teaches “The Big Idea,” a new three-credit copy design course that partners New School and Lang students who want to try writing advertising with Parsons’ students who want to try designing ads. Non-credit working professionals can also take the course and partner each other. “The Big Idea” meets 15 Monday evenings from 8:00 to 10:00 starting September 10.

Additionally at The New School, Kurt taught in the Humanities Division for 10 years, alternating “Pulp Fiction” (a history of pulp magazines and their major authors from 1890 to 1950) and “Killer Writers” (a study of crime noir writers and novels from Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson, to Chester Himes, Patricia Highsmith and Donald E. Westlake).

Kurt also teaches a continuing film series at the 92nd Street Y, “Killer Movies: Lost Films Noirs” among others, which focuses on the best and most obscure crime dramas of the 1940s.

Kurt holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Journalism, both with advertising majors, from the University of Wisconsin, writing the first thesis there on television commercials. He also taught advertising at the University of Illinois, sharing a faculty office with the legendary direct mail specialist James Webb Young. He is married with four children.