Imagine the surroundings…
I’m perched at a beautiful round oak table sipping English Breakfast tea with soy milk from fine china with a magnificent grand chandelier to my left as John Hogan’s mesmerising stories dance through my ears. I listen intently as the famed sponsorship guru, known as Formula 1’s ‘Marlboro Man’, relays how he became one of the most prominent figures ever to grace motorsport. I’m sure that the walls of the Monaco’s iconic L’Hotel Hermitage have heard many stories, but none like his…
Having worked in F1 now for over 40 years there was definitely no shortage of conversation and there’s no doubt the interview could have easily gone on for days.
Humble, intriguing and still displaying a distinct sparkle in his eyes, Hogie kicked off the interview with his recollection of being on the inaugural flight on the Concorde with his ‘mate’ Bernie Ecclestone, en route the Brazilian GP. On that same trip he even saw one of the Great Train robbers being arrested in his hotel – and that was just in the first five minutes of our chat.
This former Phillip Morris executive responsible for Marlboro and now Special Advisor to CSM, was the first man to plaster the tobacco giant’s sticker on his good mate James Hunt’s McLaren in the early 70s.
That humble deed ignited a partnership that launched both brands to the highest heights of the sport for over 30 successful years and changed the course of sponsorship in motorsport!
As a trusted voice, firstly the BRM F1 team, and then to Teddy Mayer’s McLaren outfit, it was the spritely young Hogie who advised the latter to sit Hunt in the hot seat way back when, securing his step from F3 to F1.
His stories of Hunt, which he relays with an affectionate gaze, made my jaw drop and my eyebrows rise to the hotel’s intricately designed roof. Unfortunately for our readers, I promised John I wouldn’t print any of those very entertaining tales, but man would I love to…
After listening to one of the most incredible careers I have ever heard told, Hogie told me that he probably sees his greatest achievement in motorsport as being the role he played in helping to reform the McLaren team in the late 70s and early 80s.
“Basically what had happened was they had fallen downhill,” he explained. “It’s happened to a lot of teams out there now that it’s happening [to them] again. This business is about people. I knew Ron Dennis, I knew what an awkward bugger he can be and I thought he’s just the right person to turn the team around, which he did.
“Essentially, he renewed the whole McLaren team, which was a good team but had just fallen on hard times,” he continued. “We paid for the hard times, and he turned them around. I’m responsible for Ron Dennis! That’s a big statement but totally true.”
Bringing his friend Ron and McLaren together proved to be a winning formula and one that John is unmistakably proud of. The blue eyes lighting up as the words spilled from his mouth, coated in that Aussie twang, Hogie took me back to where it all began…
“We’d started off with the BRM F1 team in 72; 73 wasn’t particularly successful and we could see it wasn’t going anywhere and then we moved to the McLaren team in 74… I’ll tell you a story about that later on which you can’t record,” he added with a mischievous grin and a chuckle.
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“We were with McLaren for 15-20 years which kind of proved the value of staying with what you’ve got and improving on it rather that throwing it away and starting again,” Hogie continued, making note of the team’s current situation as a potential positive for sponsors.
“The heritage and the value that we got out or the goodwill that we got from the press or the media for staying with McLaren and rebuilding them was enormous. I didn’t get the blame for employing Ron Dennis at all,” he added sarcastically.
As I soon realised, there was no stopping Hogie’s entertaining humorous streak creeping into the conversation every now and then. It’s easy to see why the likes of Senna, Prost, Lauda, Hunt, Ecclestone and a long list of other legends of the sport called the quick-witted executive a friend and many still do.
Another pot of tea was needed as John excitedly recalled memory after memory between bites of his omelette. Winning with McLaren on track and Marlboro off track was the aim of the game, a game both brands played very well, propelling them into a league of their own!
“It’s interesting, I didn’t really interject because we were a tobacco company our activation was about getting the brand name shown, that was all, just get the name out there, get it up in lights,” Hogie explained passionately. “That’s what you’re selling – Marlboro was the biggest selling single brand in the world, think it still is.
“That’s where our desire to win came from because if you win, you get exposure and that’s essentially what it was about,” he mused. “It was a totally different activation than it is now. The stuff that is called activation now we couldn’t do anyway, contacting consumers directly putting product in their hand, we couldn’t do that.”
It wasn’t only winning that made Marlboro/McLaren a household name, their eye-candy activations were just as successful.
There are many things that John will be remembered for in the industry forever and this is one of them. One of the most entertaining branding activities, especially for the men of the world, was the first Marlboro grid girls. Some of the most stunning ladies in Europe were hand-picked to promote the brand in what proved to be the best way possible.
And it was all John’s brilliant idea. Hiring the top beauty queens of the world to be dressed in the Marlboro brand then interact with the public was sheer genius and so surprising that no one else had thought of it.
“The catch was ‘how do we bring the circuit to town’, I always had this picture, I’m a bit of a picture thinker, and I’d seen a film called the Four-ring Circus [staring Kirk Douglas]. It was all about bringing the circus to town – lions, tigers, the people. I thought, hang on, that’s bringing the circus to town.”
Hogie’s “circus” of Marlboro girls entertained, enthralled and stole the eyes of every passer-by, at the same time spreading the word of the Marlboro brand like wildfire.
“Prior to every Grands Prix in Europe we used to have super cars, Lamborghinis, vans, they were staffed by attractive young girls who were all Miss Sweden, Miss Finland etc and they’d go and blitz a town and give out stickers and posters and post cards [saying] come to the Grand Prix and that had a tremendous effect.
“It got photographers excited because they were attractive girls, they were dressed in tight red trousers, shorts because we were bringing the circus to town,” he enthused further.
“It was harmless fun at the end of the day, it did a great job for the brand, positioned the brand where we wanted it and without blowing one’s own trumpet. I think it worked.”
Creative brilliance, boldness and no fear of failure proved supreme personality traits which led John throughout his career. Eventually the ‘Marlboro Man’ became Vice President, Marketing of Phillip Morris International and ruled the motorsport sponsorship roost for many years.
Looking back, the 74-year-old guru, with the energy of a 40-year-old credits his success to simply doing the right thing at the right time.
Transforming from playful to wise, Hogie concludes: “We had courage with our convictions, we were not afraid of anything. McLaren are struggling again at the moment, but they’ve got the right man at the helm, in Zak, to turn things around.”
To the unaware Hogie could be mistaken for a sweet, care-free man with a surprising spring in his step. Little do they know this former member of the ‘Piranha Club’ is an incredible vault of F1 knowledge, stories, and secrets!
Probably too modest to admit it, as he offers for me to join him for club sandwich in the Hermitage’s stunning dining room, John Hogan has influenced and shaped our sport like few others ever have before, and probably never will.
