Harold Mitchell, the advertising industry figure known as Australia’s pioneering and most influential media buyer, has died, aged 81.
The Melbourne businessman said in his autobiography that he and a few others “changed how advertising works” in Australia by separating the buying strategy from the creatives.
He founded the agency Mitchell & Partners in 1976 and more than four decades later – having sold the business to London-based Aegis Media – was estimated to be worth $370m.
But it was the size of the advertising budgets he controlled, rather than his personal wealth, that made Mitchell into a figure with considerable influence over Australian life – someone who had the ear of the country’s politicians and media moguls, including the late Kerry Packer and the Murdoch family.
Another leading media figure, Seven West chairman Kerry Stokes, said Mitchell had been a “visionary and a leader in the media industry”.
“Harold was a doyen of the industry and a great friend over the 40 years we had known each other,” Stokes said.
“He had a wonderful sense of humour and was a groundbreaker in the way media was monetised. I enjoyed his company, and he will be missed by us all.”
Bill Shorten, the former Labor leader, said Mitchell had been a friend.
“[He was] an avuncular Renaissance man who was energetically interested in everything and everyone,” Shorten said.
“There can only ever be one Harold Mitchell. I am privileged to have known him.”
I am shocked to hear of the passing of my friend Harold Mitchell. An avuncular, Renaissance man who was energetically interested in everything and everyone. There can only ever be one Harold Mitchell. I am privileged to have known him. My thoughts are with his family. Vale. pic.twitter.com/gvUxZItyQ5
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) February 11, 2024
Bridget Fair, the chief executive officer of Free TV Australia, where Mitchell was a long-serving chair, said he had been “one of a kind”.
Mitchell served on the boards of research, sporting and arts organisations. He gave money to health, education and the arts through his foundation.
In 2020 he was fined $90,000 for a “serious” breach of directors’ duties while on the board of Tennis Australia, related to negotiations for the broadcast rights for the Australian Open.
Mitchell is understood to have died after complications from knee surgery.
The son of a saw miller from Stawell, Victoria, Mitchell twice made a fortune from advertising. The first, he wrote in his autobiography, Living Large, collapsed into $32m of debt and he almost became “another victim of the 1980s”.
Mitchell was bailed out by Kerry Packer, who loaned him $1.9m, interest free, in 1990. It took Mitchell seven years to repay.
“Sometimes I reflect on where life has taken me – from the sawmills of Gippsland and Stawell, to the intimate circles of Australia’s richest and most powerful media families,” Mitchell wrote in Living Large.
“From a 16-year-old office boy in an advertising agency to the owner of a $100m company.
“It’s only money. As the great Australian songwriter Paul Kelly once said, you can’t take it with you.”
