John Desmond Singleton (born 9 November 1941) is an Australian
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
An entreprene ...
. He built his success and wealth in the advertising business in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, and later also had diverse investment interests in radio broadcasting, publishing and thoroughbred breeding and racing.
Early life
Singleton was born in the
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
suburb of
Enfield and educated at
Fort Street High School.
Advertising career
Singleton commenced a career in advertising in 1958 as a mail boy in the Sydney office of
J. Walter Thompson. In 1963, he took a creative role at Berry Currie Advertising, and later attaining the role of Creative Director. In 1968, together with his Art Director partner Dunc McAllan, he started his own agency in Sydney and the pair soon teamed-up with Rob Palmer and Mike Strauss who had an existing small Melbourne shop with media buying accreditation to start Singleton, Palmer and Strauss, McAllan (SPASM) which opened with offices in Sydney and
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
.

SPASM (and Singleton in particular) are notable in the history of Australian advertising for embracing an
ocker voice in their communications at a time when multi-national agency groups were making their presence felt with the advent of strategic planning and British or American-imitating tones of voice. SPASM's clients were largely local Sydney retailers and rather than using polished voices, Singleton's ads embraced the tone of working-class man. A successful campaign was created for the wholesalers David Holdings. The voice-over screamed the retailer's prices before the irritating catchphrase "Where do you get it?". Similar "low-brow" approaches were taken for
Jax Tyres "Jax the ripper Tyremen with the deals" and for Hudsons Timber and Hardware using a toothless old handyman spruiking "udsons with a haitch". Critics derided this style as ocker advertising but it would pave the way for the later success of the laconic and self-deprecating style of local Australian advertising such as that created by
Mojo in the 1980s.
In 1973, Singleton and his partners sold SPASM to
Doyle Dane Bernbach
DDB Worldwide Communications Group LLC, known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies. The international advertising networks ...
and Singleton for a time was managing director of DDB's Australian operations. Working for a large multi-national with overseas owners was a challenge for Singleton and he left the business in 1977, triggering a long non-compete provision in his contract. In 1985 Singleton started up again on his own with "John Singleton Advertising". Sydney stockbroker
Rene Rivkin bought a silent-holding in the agency during its development in the 1980s. Singleton developed close ties with the
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...
and created the advertising for
Bob Hawke's successful
1987 election campaign. In 1995 Singleton Group Limited was listed on the
Australian Securities Exchange
Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary Exchange (organized market), securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or c ...
. In February 2002, it was renamed STW Communications Group.
Along the way, Singleton acquired personal stakes in ventures including the 1990 buy-out of the
Ten Group TV network from receivership and an acquisition in 2000 of Indonesia's No 3 network
SCTV. These personal holdings in addition to the success and growth STW Group interests enabled Singleton to amass a massive personal fortune.
In 1994, Singleton purchased
2CH from
AWA followed in 1996 by
2GB from the
Wesley Mission. Having been merged into
Macquarie Radio, in 2019 Singleton sold his shareholding to
Nine Entertainment
Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Limited is an Australian publicly listed company with holdings in mass media radio and television broadcasting, publishing and digital media. It uses Nine as its corporate branding.
The entity is largely a succ ...
.
Honours and awards
In 1994, Singleton was appointed as a
Member of the Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...
for service to the community through his own personal support and fundraising activities more broadly. In 2000 Singleton was awarded the
Australian Sports Medal. In 2009 Singleton was included in the inaugural twelve inductees to ''Ad News'' magazine's, Australian Advertising Hall of Fame.
Personal life

Singleton has eight children from seven marriages. He has been married to Margaret Wall, Maggie Eckardt,
Belinda Green,
Liz Hayes, Jennifer Murrant - de facto, Julie Martin, and Sarah Warry. His daughter Dawn was killed in April 2024 during the
mass knife attack at
Westfield Bondi Junction shopping mall.
Net worth
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Singleton, John
1941 births
Living people
Australian advertising executives
Australian copywriters
Businesspeople from Sydney
Members of the Order of Australia
People educated at Fort Street High School
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal