Athol Hodgetts

Athol Hodgetts grew up in Tasmania in a large extended family with a strong connection to local agriculture and farming. As a child, he recalls his uncles taking draught horses on the boat to Melbourne to compete at the prestigious Royal Melbourne Show.

Athol moved to Victoria with his own family in 1975 and pursued a varied career in business and marketing, including running his own grocery business, starting a biotech company, and working in football administration for twenty years. In 1992, the General Manager of the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV), Bob Carr, approached Athol and asked him to bring his expertise in marketing as a consultant to RASV, which was experiencing some financial strain:

I had a number of discussions with Bob about my thoughts of what could be done … I put forward some ideas about product sponsors, such as a beer sponsor, a milk sponsor, a chocolate sponsor, a soft-drink sponsor, to name just three or four. Then I put the idea to Bob about a naming rights sponsor for the Royal Melbourne Show.

The concept of a naming rights sponsor was new to RASV and it took some time for Athol to persuade the committee to take that step. But he succeeded, and in 1993 RASV made a successful deal with St George Bank. As part of the arrangement, well-known entertainer Julie Anthony became an ambassador for the Royal Melbourne Show. Although the partnership between RASV and St George Bank lasted only a few years, the naming rights sponsorship was unique for agricultural shows in Australia.

Another major and lucrative initiative instigated by Athol was negotiating product supply rights deals for RASV with companies such as Carlton United Breweries and National Dairies. Athol recalls that while some on the RASV committee – many of whom had been involved for decades – were resistant to change and concerned about the Show being commercialised, everyone could recognise the financial and promotional benefits that came with product supply deals, high-profile sponsors and prominent advertising campaigns.

The RASV’s employment of a dedicated marketing manager saw the end of Athol’s involvement with the society as a consultant. However, his vision and hard work in bringing much-needed funds and publicity to RASV via sponsorship and product supply rights remains a proud achievement.

We'd negotiated with St George and through Athol Guy, one of The Seekers – Athol was doing some consultancy with St George Bank, a lovely guy – we negotiated with Athol and then we met the executives of the bank. I'll never forget the day that we had the executives coming down to basically meet the Show committee and basically conclude the deal – well that's what we thought was going to happen. First of all, they kept us waiting for about half an hour before they brought us into the room, and there was quite a number. These two executives had flown down from Sydney, been kept waiting half an hour, were brought into the room, and the Chairman got up and said, "Well gentlemen, can you tell us why we should allow you to become the naming rights sponsor of the Royal Melbourne Show?" Well, I nearly fell off my chair and I think Bob Carr nearly fell off his chair. I thought, these two guys are going to get up and walk out of here. But thankfully they hung in there, we went through that, and we finally did the deal.