Hard Work Beats Hype as Tom Madden Pushes Back on AI’s Creative Creep
In a candid interview, longtime public relations executive Tom Madden emphasized that what often appears to be luck is, in reality, the result of persistent effort, strategic thinking and tireless work ethic — traits he says remain vital in a rapidly evolving media environment shaped by technology.
“Sure, some call it luck,” Madden said, reflecting on a career that spans journalism, corporate communications and agency leadership. “But I’ve always found if you work hard enough, luck will find you and people will pat you on the back and say you’re one helluva lucky guy.”
Madden is the founder and CEO of TransMedia Group, a Boca Raton-based public relations firm. His career began in journalism as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he wrote numerous front-page stories and interviewed major figures, including boxing icon Muhammad Ali and President Richard Nixon during the Watergate era.
Later, he joined one of Manhattan’s top PR firms and was assigned to its largest client, Kellogg Co., where he wrote speeches for the company’s chairman. One such speech defended Tony the Tiger himself, amid an effort by the Federal Trade Commission to dismantle what it labeled an oligopoly among the three major cereal companies: Kellogg, General Mills and Post. The speech, which was later reprinted in The New York Times, helped defuse the regulatory threat — and earned Madden a personal breakfast with Kellogg’s chairman.
Madden went on to join ABC and eventually became vice president and assistant to the president of NBC under television executive Fred Silverman, a major milestone he credits to both timing and hard work.
Each of these milestones, Madden said, was less about chance and more about what he calls “the hard work that luck gravitates to.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “Luck takes good old-fashioned hard work.”
More than 40 years after launching his firm, Madden continues to lead TransMedia Group alongside his daughter, Adrienne Mazzone, who serves as the firm’s president. He also writes books and blogs between proposals to prospective clients, promising to make them “even bigger, wealthier and more famous by providing that crème de la crème additive — publicity.”
Though Madden acknowledges the role of artificial intelligence in modern business, he remains skeptical of its impact on creativity.
“I’m the worst person to interview about AI. I don’t use it. I don’t trust it, and I believe it will make us all creatively lazy,” he said. “It’s great if you want to find the right people to pitch to and maybe even help you craft the right pitch. But me, I prefer to stay the way I am and keep exercising my creativity — my own creativity.”
He likens writing to dining: “Thinking is like eating. You don’t want to gulp it down. You want to chew and savor. That’s how I think of writing. Words are more delicious when thoughtfully delivered, however long it takes.”
In an era increasingly reliant on automation, Madden’s career — and his philosophy — remain rooted in the value of experience, originality and effort.
