Aubrey Malden, managing director of McCann-Erickson’s troubled
Scottish agency, has quit after rejecting offers of alternative jobs
within the network.
McCanns announced in June that Malden was being replaced. He has now
left the group after turning down offers of creative directorships at
McCanns offices in Eastern Europe.
Malden said: ’I’m taking a month out to think things through. I just
want to produce some decent work for some decent clients.’
Malden, who had been running McCanns in Edinburgh for six years,
resigned along with his wife, Ronnie, the agency’s head of art.
Their departures follow a torrid period for the agency, which has
suffered a series of account losses - including the pounds 2 million
Theakston’s beer account - and a poor new-business record.
Malden, currently chairman of the Marketing Society in Scotland, has
spent almost half of his 25-year advertising career north of the
border.
A founding partner of the Craton Lodge and Knight brand development
agency, he is a former creative director of the J. Walter Thompson and
Ogilvy & Mather agencies in Brussels and of O&M in Johannesburg.
Paul Morley, the chairman of McCanns in Birmingham, has assumed
responsibility for the Edinburgh operation until its future is resolved.