John Hogan RiP
Discussion
A name only those with a deep interest in the sport will probably know but someone who's influence on was profound and without which would be a very different looking beast to that which it is today - certainly a very different history.
Taken by Covid at 74. His obituary is well worth a read.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/154435/obituary-...
Taken by Covid at 74. His obituary is well worth a read.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/154435/obituary-...
Eric Mc said:
Was he a good influence or a bad influence on the sport?
That's the question! On the one hand, he could be seen as the father of budgetary excess in the sport which has had limited benefits to but a few.
But on the other, it's unlikely the likes of James Hunt would have became the names and stories they became.
He certainly professionalised sponsorship. Again, how one views that is likely to be variable.
Hogan was an undisputed marketing genius and there aren't many of us out there 
Marlboro was a cheap, hill-billy brand with little in the way of appeal until he got his hands on it transforming it into what I think was the most popular brand of cigarette in the world, a process that Motor Sport was central to.
It wasn't the first fag brand to appear in F1 (Gold Leaf - Lotus 1967 IIRC) but was by far the most prominent and successful and led to some of the most memorable and iconic liveries to ever grace a racing car - JPS, Rothmans, Gitaines....
Having thought about it, I don't think you could level any negativity towards Hogan for bringing fag money into the sport. At the time this all started, society's relationship with smoking was very different and immeasurably more ambivalent to its risks, which weren't then, even fully known.
I'm not certain that you could throw much negativity towards him on the over-commercialisation of the sport either. Taking into account inflation, the money Marlboro thew at the sport in the 70s would barely buy you space on a wing end plate today.
What it did do is demonstrate the correlation between money and speed and thus success which the teams have seized upon ever since with the regulators previously unwilling to intervene to keep a lid on things.
Marlboro was a cheap, hill-billy brand with little in the way of appeal until he got his hands on it transforming it into what I think was the most popular brand of cigarette in the world, a process that Motor Sport was central to.
It wasn't the first fag brand to appear in F1 (Gold Leaf - Lotus 1967 IIRC) but was by far the most prominent and successful and led to some of the most memorable and iconic liveries to ever grace a racing car - JPS, Rothmans, Gitaines....
Having thought about it, I don't think you could level any negativity towards Hogan for bringing fag money into the sport. At the time this all started, society's relationship with smoking was very different and immeasurably more ambivalent to its risks, which weren't then, even fully known.
I'm not certain that you could throw much negativity towards him on the over-commercialisation of the sport either. Taking into account inflation, the money Marlboro thew at the sport in the 70s would barely buy you space on a wing end plate today.
What it did do is demonstrate the correlation between money and speed and thus success which the teams have seized upon ever since with the regulators previously unwilling to intervene to keep a lid on things.
The introduction of tobacco money into F1 brought in the big bucks. Of that there is no uncertainty. In 1966, tobacco was facing outright advertising bans on TV across virtually the whole of Europe. There was a reason for that - and it wasn't down to ambivalence. Already, by the mid 1960s the data was in on the lethality of cigarettes/tobacco. And that is why the TV ban was going in.
Tobacco now had a large cash pot to spend on advertising and nowhere to spend it. Colin Chapman teamed up with Imperial Tobacco to start the ball rolling. That was in 1968. Marlboro came in about four years later - initially with BRM and later McLaren. They also sponsored lots of drivers too - even if the teams they were driving for weren't themselves receiving Marlboro money.
By the mid 1970s we had Players (JPS) Marlboro, Gitanes, Lucky Strike, Embassy etc all appearing on F1 and other racing cars.
Cigarette companies also started sponsoring other sports, such as the Embassy World Snooker Championship.
Tobacco now had a large cash pot to spend on advertising and nowhere to spend it. Colin Chapman teamed up with Imperial Tobacco to start the ball rolling. That was in 1968. Marlboro came in about four years later - initially with BRM and later McLaren. They also sponsored lots of drivers too - even if the teams they were driving for weren't themselves receiving Marlboro money.
By the mid 1970s we had Players (JPS) Marlboro, Gitanes, Lucky Strike, Embassy etc all appearing on F1 and other racing cars.
Cigarette companies also started sponsoring other sports, such as the Embassy World Snooker Championship.
Eric Mc said:
He was promoting something that was still legal to promote - but the jury was no longer out on the harm tobacco was doing.
It was a moral issue rather than a legal issue. Having said all that, some of my favourite F1 (and other motor sport) liveries came from the "baccie" era.
Should we ban all alcohol advertising? Should we ban high-interest loan companies (legal loan sharks) from promoting their services too? Both of these are legal to promote yet questionable morally.It was a moral issue rather than a legal issue. Having said all that, some of my favourite F1 (and other motor sport) liveries came from the "baccie" era.
DaveE87 said:
Should we ban all alcohol advertising? Should we ban high-interest loan companies (legal loan sharks) from promoting their services too? Both of these are legal to promote yet questionable morally.
I'm not entering into a debate on what types of advertising of products should or shouldn't be banned. The arguments regarding cigarettes and tobacco were won and lost decades ago - and we know what the outcome was.My general question was, and still is, was the introduction of tobacco sponsorship into motor sport in the late 1960s a good thing or a bad thing for the sport?
It marked a massive change to a much more commercialised operation and it saw the beginnings of really big money in the sport.
Eric Mc said:
I'm not entering into a debate on what types of advertising of products should or shouldn't be banned. The arguments regarding cigarettes and tobacco were won and lost decades ago - and we know what the outcome was.
My general question was, and still is, was the introduction of tobacco sponsorship into motor sport in the late 1960s a good thing or a bad thing for the sport?
It marked a massive change to a much more commercialised operation and it saw the beginnings of really big money in the sport.
Fair enough.My general question was, and still is, was the introduction of tobacco sponsorship into motor sport in the late 1960s a good thing or a bad thing for the sport?
It marked a massive change to a much more commercialised operation and it saw the beginnings of really big money in the sport.
It's probably a mixture of good and bad things. Financially for the teams it has been good and probably brought a lot of teams and people to the sport that we wouldn't have seen without the investment. On the flipside, has it contributed to the huge gulf in funding that we see in motorsport (both within F1 and in comparison to different categories)? If it wasn't tobacco something else would be in its place. Regardless of how you look at it there'll always be a bit of whataboutery regarding tobacco sponsorship.
I'm not sure it would have happened the way it did if tobacco had not been banned from TV in the 1966/67 period.
If you look at the history of American motorsport, it had always been sponsored. Cars carrying corporate logos had been around from pre-World War 1 days. Not much of that advertising was tobacco related. There was some, but it wasn't over dominant.
F1 (and European motorsport in general) had, until the mid 1960s, been largely unsponsored - apart from subtle assistance provided by industries involved in the sport, such as the fuel, oil, spark plug and tyre companies. When the governing bodies of European motorsport suddenly decided to allow pretty much unhindered sponsorship - in 1968 - it coincided almost exactly with the tobacco companies looking for somewhere to spend their massive cash mountain of unspent advertising budgets which had built up.
Therefore F1 suddenly found itself awash with tobacco money. It was a very strange set of circumstances.
If you look at the history of American motorsport, it had always been sponsored. Cars carrying corporate logos had been around from pre-World War 1 days. Not much of that advertising was tobacco related. There was some, but it wasn't over dominant.
F1 (and European motorsport in general) had, until the mid 1960s, been largely unsponsored - apart from subtle assistance provided by industries involved in the sport, such as the fuel, oil, spark plug and tyre companies. When the governing bodies of European motorsport suddenly decided to allow pretty much unhindered sponsorship - in 1968 - it coincided almost exactly with the tobacco companies looking for somewhere to spend their massive cash mountain of unspent advertising budgets which had built up.
Therefore F1 suddenly found itself awash with tobacco money. It was a very strange set of circumstances.
Eric Mc said:
The introduction of tobacco money into F1 brought in the big bucks. Of that there is no uncertainty. In 1966, tobacco was facing outright advertising bans on TV across virtually the whole of Europe. There was a reason for that - and it wasn't down to ambivalence. Already, by the mid 1960s the data was in on the lethality of cigarettes/tobacco. And that is why the TV ban was going in.
Yep. When I say ambivalence I mean that of society as a whole. There's a lag of many years between institutional recognition of the need to change things and society starting to do so. The benefit of seat belts was recognised as far back as the 50s but it took a change in the law in 1983 to get people to buckle up. I started work in '83 and somebody would always have a fag on the go in the studio and nobody batted an eyelid.The 70s was I guess halcyon for F1 in terms of where it could get its money. Even the porn industry got in on the act. It always made me smile that Bernie Ecclestone was always against the Gambling industry sponsoring F1 because he thought it devalue the brand of F1.
Different times though. I remember my Mum and Dad taking me to either Custom Car Show or the Motor Show at Earls Court in 1977. I would have been 10 and got my first look a ladies' boobs as they draped them selves over the bonnet of the latest Viva (the ladies that is, not the boobies) - lots of them in fact. Imagine that happening now!
A big influence on how Formula 1 was shaped in the 1980s, an era which many view as its golden years. Formula 1 history wouldn't be the same without him. He was instrumental in teaming up McLaren with Ron Dennis's Project 4, getting Lauda into McLaren, getting Prost back into McLaren, and those deals went on to shape the decade.
And he always seemed open to an interview. His anecdotes show up in a few books about Formula 1 and I always find them entertaining to read.
John Hogan shaped much of the Formula 1 world that got me into this forum.
And he always seemed open to an interview. His anecdotes show up in a few books about Formula 1 and I always find them entertaining to read.
John Hogan shaped much of the Formula 1 world that got me into this forum.
If you listen to people involved at the time when he was round he was a hugely influential man, and was clearly a vital part of all sorts of Marlboro decisions making.
He and James and Mike Earle were pivotal in the Marlboro driver market that gave you Hakkinen, in fact an anecdote from a Beyond f1 pod was that he was literally the last guy they threw in the hat and only after they were about to leave and a secretary gave them the application and they gave it one last shot to see. Imagine that!
think of the money they threw at guys like Nishy, Mika, Alesi, Lehto in his early days, the Ferte brothers, Gachot, Goossens, Irvine, not all them made it but they all had chances as they were picked up early doors by Marlboro, kids think Red Bull invented this stuff but Marlboro were doing it in the 70's for Gods sake.
Albeit in a very different way.
I had and have no issue with fag money, it did not influence me whatsoever, it influenced tv people which is why it primarily was banned. Were it not for "it" I can guarantee that top level motorsport would have been nowhere near as good from about the mid 70's to the mid 90's.
He and James and Mike Earle were pivotal in the Marlboro driver market that gave you Hakkinen, in fact an anecdote from a Beyond f1 pod was that he was literally the last guy they threw in the hat and only after they were about to leave and a secretary gave them the application and they gave it one last shot to see. Imagine that!
think of the money they threw at guys like Nishy, Mika, Alesi, Lehto in his early days, the Ferte brothers, Gachot, Goossens, Irvine, not all them made it but they all had chances as they were picked up early doors by Marlboro, kids think Red Bull invented this stuff but Marlboro were doing it in the 70's for Gods sake.
Albeit in a very different way.
I had and have no issue with fag money, it did not influence me whatsoever, it influenced tv people which is why it primarily was banned. Were it not for "it" I can guarantee that top level motorsport would have been nowhere near as good from about the mid 70's to the mid 90's.
Circumstances forced them to take it. Who in their right minds was going to refuse somebody willing to throw pots of money around? As ever, it was Colin Chapman who spotted the opportunity first.
The money was there for the taking - all the teams needed to do was wake up to its existence.
The money was there for the taking - all the teams needed to do was wake up to its existence.
LukeBrown66 said:
Were it not for "it" I can guarantee that top level motorsport would have been nowhere near as good from about the mid 70's to the mid 90's.
It was pretty good in 1966 and 1967 - the last two years before the first "fag money" season.In fact, I don't recall anybody complaining about the state of F1 in the years before the tobacco money arrived.
For good or bad (and realistically as in most things it was a mix of both), tobacco money helped make Formula 1 what it was in the '70s, '80s and '90s and in the background still does today. I don't remember much public outcry in the '80s about the sponsorship but I'm sure there'd be much more noise today if they tried it.
Even back when I started working, in the 1990s, the ban on smoking in offices and public buildings was yet to come. Far more people I knew smoked, and many smoked indoors and in the office. Cars still had ashtrays. It's hard to look at old times through a modern lens and still understand the choices we or our predecessors made, but you have to look at the choices they made with the knowledge they had, and that knowledge being common shared and accepted knowledge, not facts that a few scientests are still fighting to get accepted.
I suppose younger people 40 years on from now will look back on us and scorn our blinkered ignorance of global warming, susceptibility to fake news, propensity to elect idiots with stupid hair into power, and goodness knows what else we currently take as part of our culture, freedom, rights or whatever even though the truth is available now if we decide to listen to the right people (but good luck working out who they are without travelling 40 years into the future first)
Even back when I started working, in the 1990s, the ban on smoking in offices and public buildings was yet to come. Far more people I knew smoked, and many smoked indoors and in the office. Cars still had ashtrays. It's hard to look at old times through a modern lens and still understand the choices we or our predecessors made, but you have to look at the choices they made with the knowledge they had, and that knowledge being common shared and accepted knowledge, not facts that a few scientests are still fighting to get accepted.
I suppose younger people 40 years on from now will look back on us and scorn our blinkered ignorance of global warming, susceptibility to fake news, propensity to elect idiots with stupid hair into power, and goodness knows what else we currently take as part of our culture, freedom, rights or whatever even though the truth is available now if we decide to listen to the right people (but good luck working out who they are without travelling 40 years into the future first)
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