It’s no secret the New Zealand racing industry has seen an abundance of positive announcements in recent months. That momentum and excitement was carried over to NZTR’s 2024 Industry Development Day this past week.
Held at Ellerslie Racecourse for the second year, an outstanding calibre of guest speakers from various sports and entertainment industries took the stage to inspire innovation and “big picture” thinking for New Zealand’s racing Clubs and Recognised Industry Organisations.
NZTR CEO Bruce Sharrock opened the presentations and welcomed the group of more than 140 attendees from across the racing industry. While Clubs have a big part to play, Sharrock said it’s up to the industry as a whole to work together to ensure the racing product stands the test of time.
“Our industry is at an exciting but crucial stage,” he said.
“We have the ability to leave a legacy, but we must first face a few exciting challenges together.
“Change has to occur across the industry with a mindset to challenge the way things are done.”
Presentations soon got underway with a compelling demonstration by One NZ CEO, Jason Paris, who demonstrated the power of rebranding and repositioning using his own experience within the rebrand from Vodafone to One NZ. The importance of the customer was at the forefront of his messaging but concluded with a warning to not allow internal influences, like our own biases and experiences, to hinder success for the organisation as a whole.
New Zealand entrepreneur Hamish Pinkham was next up. As the creator of New Zealand’s largest music festival, Rhythm and Vines, Pinkham provided the roadmap to what has made Rhythm and Vines a monumental success. While the event only runs for three days over New Year, the entrepreneur attributed much of the success and longevity of the festival to engaging the customer through quality content throughout the entire year. Racing can take a page from this book as a seasonal product with ample content to promote the sport outside of the main racing seasons.
Entain Australia and New Zealand CEO, Dean Shannon, focused on wagering growth and ‘the big and little things’ that make the domestic industry tick. While wagering figures and statistics outlined his presentation, his core messaging was around the presentation of racing and how that can be improved to increase turnover. Presenting the racing product in the best light inspires trust from the punter which will translate into wagering and benefit the entire industry.
Sponsorship was the topic of conversation for One NZ head of marketing and branding, Georgia Mahaffie. She simplified her work as part of the rebranding team from Vodafone to One NZ, into one sentence ‘a brand's job is to simplify choice.’ Throughout her presentation, she focused on sponsorship and how to use partnerships to stay at the top of the customer's mind to build loyalty.
The session continued with Ian Bennett, GM of Eleven, NZTR and Auckland Thoroughbred Racing’s public relations agency. The PR executive focused on enhancing the public perception of racing before turning it over to Entain’s Chief Media Officer Chris Haigh and Chief Marketing Officer Mel Kenneday who presented fresh and exciting branding for both Trackside and TAB.
Finally, the event closed with a panel of Club CEOs answering the hard-hitting questions presented by George Simon, before moving on to NZTR’s Club Awards. This year saw a revamped Awards structure where NZTR used existing data and information to assess key judging criteria over the 2023 calendar year.
Entain also got behind the awards this year, providing a 25k prize fund distributed across the three classifications, Metro, Provincial, Country and an overall Club Award.
The 2023 NZTR Club Awards Winners are as follows:
Metropolitan - Auckland Thoroughbred Racing
Provincial - Whangarei Racing Club
Country - Kumara Racing Club
Overall Winner - Co-winners Auckland Thoroughbred Racing and Whangarei Racing Club
Additional Awards were presented to Waikato Thoroughbred Racing who excelled in leadership as well as the Club Appreciation Award being presented to Racing Taupo.
Karen Houlihan and Rebecca Swords of Whangarei Racing Club were ecstatic to be recognised at a national level as a smaller provincial club.
“It was good to see a provincial Club be recognised alongside a big Club like ATR.”
“We will be able to make really good use of the prize fund and can’t wait to take it back to the Board and let them know.”