Rupert Brendon is stepping down after 16 years as chairman and chief executive officer of DMB&B/Canada.
Brendon will be replaced in October by Raj Marwah, managing director of DMB&B/New Zealand.
Brendon will stay on as chairman until the end of December to ensure a smooth transition, and afterward will consult for the agency.
Barham, Brandes remain
Dennis Barham and Gary Brandes will remain as co-managing directors, reporting to Marwah.
While retiring from dmb&b, Brendon has no intention of retiring from the industry.
‘I’m not ready to sit on my back porch at the farm in a rocker and quit, but, equally, it takes an awful lot of energy to keep doing the same thing at the same place,’ he says.
‘I would like to continue my interest in advertising, assuming people think I have something to offer, but do it at a little less frenetic pace than driving an agency every day.
‘I would like to look for something in the association world. That would interest me.
‘If you think about what some of my non-agency activities have been, they really reflect my passion and interest in the business.
‘But it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to say I have a job lined up because I don’t.’
Some of Brendon’s contributions to the advertising industry outside of dmb&b include the founding of the National Advertising Benevolent Society of Canada in 1983, and the Cassies, the Canadian Advertising Effectiveness Awards.
He is past-chairman of the first biannual Canadian Congress of Advertising and past-chairman of the Institute of Canadian Advertising.
Brendon began his career in London in 1963 at what is now bmp/ddb.
He moved to Canada in 1967 and spent five years each at Leo Burnett and Norman Craig & Kummel.
He joined Benton & Bowles Canada as president and ceo in 1978 when the company had annual billings of $6 million and one client.
$100 million in billings
Today, dmb&b bills $100 million through about 30 clients.
Marwah has worked in London and Asia with other agencies, and has been with dmb&b in New Zealand for the last five years.
He comes from a creative background and, while he has not worked in Canada, has worked with the major clients of the Toronto agency – Procter & Gamble, Mars and Burger King – in New Zealand.
Brendon says the agency had been looking for his replacement within the Canadian industry for the past year, but was unable to find an appropriate candidate.
