He’s an Ad Man, a Business Man, Author, TV Producer, TV Presenter, a board member of the Melbourne Demons AFL club and Chair of the AFTRS Council.
In his spare time, Russel Howcroft, together with Ross Stevenson, co-hosts Australia’s most successful breakfast show (in share) on Melbourne’s 3AW.
It’s not a vacancy that comes up often at that station. The man he replaced, John Burns, was himself an institution having sat in the studio chair alongside Stevenson for almost 20 years, notching up 147 consecutive survey wins in the process.
Howcroft recently had a big week, even by his standards. On the Tuesday he presided over AFTRS 50th Anniversary and on the Thursday he was inducted into the AdNews Advertising Hall of Fame.
How big an honour for you is the Advertising Hall of Fame?
“I don’t know how you’d put a scale on it, but it’s big. If you have a look at the names of people that have sort of a little over 20 plus names, and certainly the majority of those names are well known within the advertising industry. Many of them are known beyond the advertising industry. So to be among those people is a big deal for me. Most definitely it is.
“It’s an industry that I still love… I even get to do live reads on the radio every morning. So it’s a big, and of course, advertising revenue is what 3AW is all about. So I’m still part of that advertising industry.”