Hasta La Creative!

One day after news of the sexual harassment suit filed against Innocean and chief creative officer Eric Springer broke—and nearly two whole months after the suit was initially filed—we have yet to receive any sort of formal response from the CCO, the agency, or its parent company Hyundai.

We have, however, received a lot of follow-up information from both current and former employees who are unhappy with the way management has dealt with the news.

Multiple parties tell us that the vast majority of the 300-plus employees at the agency’s Huntington Beach headquarters had no knowledge of the suit before Adweek’s story went live yesterday.

We also hear from two different sources that staffers are extremely unhappy with management’s apparent decision to stand behind Springer. There have been no announcements about the case, and speculation holds that the CCO will remain in his job unless executives at Hyundai choose to act.

(While Innocean became a publicly traded company in 2015, the Chung family of South Korea, descended from Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung, remain its largest shareholders.)

One current employee expressed disbelief that leadership has not moved to fire or discipline Springer. Another said that Steve Jun, who became CEO in 2015 when his predecessor suddenly moved back to South Korea, was seen standing in line for happy hour yesterday while his employees all talked about the case around him. (We are aware that this incident was mentioned on Fishbowl, but we have discussed it directly with a very reliable source.)

Two other parties tell us that staffers are threatening a mass walkout on Monday if the company does not act.

Since the story first broke, multiple women have reached out to say that they, too, went through some form of harassment while working under Springer. A former junior employee says that she experienced “belittling behavior” from management but felt powerless to act during her time there. An individual who briefly considered joining the agency says she was “warned about Eric,” while another says news of the suit was unsurprising given his “reputation.”

A male Innocean veteran wrote, “I worked in that office and can verify that everything Victoria alleges is true, and more. Eric is the epitome of the overly confident and overly empowered frat boy-turned executive who’s never been held accountable for his actions in any arena. The only thing that surprises me about this reporting is that it took so long for it to become public.”

He also described as “tone deaf” the fact that the shop ran an International Women’s day post celebrating female employees on its Instagram account approximately two hours after the story first broke.

The post has since apparently been deleted.

Another interesting note brought to our attention by an anonymous tipster: Victoria Guenier, the producer who brought the suit against Springer, received a production credit on “The Force,” the Deutsch Volkswagen spot on which Springer served as group creative director. So the two parties have known each other for some time.

Innocean is reportedly holding an all-staff meeting late this afternoon to discuss the case with employees.

Updates to come.