The terrorist attacks on September 11 are said to have "changed everything". But when you look at American advertising, it's very hard to see how. I don't notice advertisers rushing into print or on to television with ads that speak to a "new reality".

In fact, a random survey of post-September 11 advertising turns up only one commercial I'd categorise as being among the year's best work. It's Christmas Eve, and a young executive is just leaving work. A co-worker nods at the big wrapped box he's carrying. "Last minute gift?" she asks. "Last second," he replies. Cut to the exec walking on a deserted street, where he encounters a homeless man. "For you," he says, as he sets the box down. An off-camera voice asks: "This holiday, wouldn't it be nice to buy just one more present?" Cut to the homeless man, removing a wool shirt from the box and trying it on.

That commercial neatly summarises all the rhetoric about September 11-how it's made Americans kinder, more spiritual, less concerned about ourselves and more committed to our communities. And although the advertiser is American Express, which clearly stands to benefit from those last-minute impulse purchases, it somehow manages not to seem self-serving.

This commercial reflects a shift that most advertisers seem not to have registered: despite all our efforts to return to "normal" since September 11, we have been in a state of "heightened awareness". This increased sensitivity leaks into every aspect of our lives, including advertising.

You might think that we would welcome consumers paying closer attention to our work. This is, after all, a time when the industry is facing its first two-year decline since the Depression. It's not just that spending on advertising is down in the United States. Employment in the ad business continues to shrink across the globe, and media companies are fighting for their own survival. It's a gloomy picture, with no one predicting much improvement until the third quarter of 2002. And yet, underneath all that gloom and doom, Media Marketing Assessment has released a study that's pure Good News: brands that spread their advertising dollars around get a better return on their investment than brands that flee from advertising and put their promotional dollars into coupons or in-store signage.

This good news only makes me more perplexed. When there are such clear rewards for brands that commit to topical, creative advertising, why are there so few ads that really speak to this historical moment?

I suspect that the answer is that a great many people - advertisers and agencies alike - are just plain scared. They may intellectually understand that credibility now matters more than sloganeering. But credibility begins by facing reality with our eyes open. That means having the courage to come to our own conclusions and form our own opinions. To speak honestly based on what we think is right. To advertise with a credible voice, a human voice, a voice worthy of trust.

Today there is unlimited opportunity for what I call "leadership brands" - brands that are willing to jettison traditional forms to provide messages of meaning and value: believable invitations to purchase, delivered by people whose humanity is rock-solid.

And that isn't impossible to accomplish. Not if we really believe that the work we do is important. And that it can be based on honesty and value and integrity. In a recent book titled Good Work: Where Excellence and Ethics Meet, Howard Gardner and his colleagues argue that the work you do should be good for you, as a person. It should also be good for the industry and the economy. But moreover it should be good for the world.

What advertisers do is good work. We help keep our clients' brands and businesses healthy and vital and growing. And those businesses are at the heart of the free economies that shape the way of life we all believe in. Those businesses make a difference in millions of lives - especially now.

Bob Schmetterer is chairman and CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide, the world's fifth-largest advertising agency network

bob.schmetterer@eurorscg.com