Hasta La Creative!

Saatchi & Saatchi chairman Kevin Roberts told Business Insider that the gender diversity debate is over.

The publication pointed out that all six holding company CEOs are male and that while 46.4 percent of the ad industry is female, only 11.5 percent of creative directors are (a number up from the 3 percent figure that gave The 3% Conference its name when it was created in 2010). When Business Insider suggested that the gender diversity debate continues in the industry, Roberts responded, “Not in my view.” 

The publication brought up the 11.5% figure, as well as recent discrimination lawsuits, such as the one filed against former JWT CEO and chairman Gustavo Martinez by global chief communications officer Erin Johnson or the one alleging former RAPP CEO Alexei Orlov referred to various women as “fat cows” and declined to promote a female executive because she was “too pretty” (amongst other charges).

“Edward de Bono [Maltese physician, psychologist, and author] once told me there is no point in being brilliant at the wrong thing — the fucking debate is all over,” Roberts said. “This is a diverse world, we are in a world where we need, like we’ve never needed before, integration, collaboration, connectivity, and creativity … this will be reflected in the way the Groupe is.”

Publicis Groupe employs around 50 percent women, Saatchi & Saatchi around 65 percent.

When asked specifically about women like Cindy Gallop calling attention to ongoing gender issues in the industry, Roberts said, “I think she’s got problems that are of her own making. I think she’s making up a lot of the stuff to create a profile, and to take applause, and to get on a soap[box].”

Gallop responded by saying, “The best response to that is to throw it open to the industry, and ask the women and men of the ad industry, all around the world, to tweet at @krconnect to let him know whether they think I’m ‘making it all up’.”

Gallop has since tweeted about Roberts’ interview with a series of statements, including quoting a Facebook post from William Charnock, who said, “‘Issue is all over’ feels like a Donald Trump-ism – dismissive, insensitive, inaccurate.”

Plenty of other ad folks, meanwhile, have taken up Gallop’s call to tweet a piece of their mind at Roberts.

Several weeks ago, the legal teams of JWT, WPP and former CEO/chairman Gustavo Martinez each filed a motion to dismiss Erin Johnson‘s lawsuit against Martinez. Unsurprisingly, Johnson’s lawyers responded today by filing a memorandum in opposition to Martinez’s motion to dismiss the complaint, contending that JWT and WPP’s response to Johnson’s complaints show that “if you complain of discrimination, you will be attacked publicly, be branded as a liar and ostracized.”

The 23-page memorandum attempts to refute the various arguments made in the aforementioned motion to dismiss the case. Among the arguments in that motion for dismissal, Martinez’s lawyers contended that a text sent by Johnson to Martinez ten days before her legal team let WPP and JWT know that they would be filing a suit was evidence that Martinez’s behavior did not create a hostile work environment. In the message, Johnson told Martinez she had turned down a job offer, choosing instead to stay loyal to him and JWT. Johnson’s lawyers reject the “snippets of a text” as invalidating her argument that Martinez created a hostile work environment.

“There is no question that “going along to get along” is common in these cases,” they wrote in the memorandum. “Plaintiffs decision not to quit in reaction to a dispute with a more than decade-long employer is neither unusual, nor relevant to this motion.”

Regarding the text in question, the memorandum adds, “Discovery will show the full texts, emails, and the like among many relevant individuals and a jury can decide the significance of this text at that time, with a full record.”

The document also objects to the notion that there weren’t enough instances of offending behavior on Martinez’s part to constitute a case against him. “Corporate defendants list six such incidents [of offensive comments by Martinez],” the document states. “That behavior, without more, could state a claim for a hostile environment. In addition, however, defendants ignore that those allegations are far from describing isolated incidents, but instead are examples of sexist, humiliating and threatening behavior that was typical of Martinez.”

Johnson’s legal team also alleges, contrary to Martinez’s claims, that “despite Johnson’s repeatedly following ‘her employer’s well-established discrimination prevention policies,’ the discrimination continued, escalated and provoked retaliation and defendants’ ridicule.” (In the motion for dismissal, Martinez’s team claimed to find it “‘fascinating’ that Johnson did not use “her employer’s well-established discrimination prevention policies.”)

The memorandum also addresses the claims made by Martinez’s legal team that Martinez’s behavior didn’t amount to sexual harassment which created a hostile work environment by stating his comments, including retaliatory remarks made when Johnson objected to his previous behavior by stating “The sex-based nature of Martinez’s offensive comments and conduct frequently was explicit.”

“For example, when Johnson told Martinez that his comments about rape were not acceptable in the workplace, he responded by telling her that ‘American women are too sensitive,’” the document goes on. “Shortly thereafter, he grabbed Johnson around the neck with his arm, telling her to come to him so that he could rape her in the bathroom.” 

Additionally, Johnson’s lawyers address the claim that “all of the ‘complained of adverse actions occurred in 2015’ before plaintiffs first protected activity in February 2016.”

“Of course, just because Martinez says something does not make it so,” the document states, alleging that there were “multiple instances of protected activity in both 2015 and 2016, and many examples of adverse actions thereafter.”

For more on the most recent filing in the case, see Adweek’s coverage, which includes the document in full.

The move is now official: agency vet Matt Eastwood has left his position as CCO at DDB New York to become worldwide chief creative officer at JWT (or, as they’d prefer, the J. Walter Thompson Company).

The Australian-turned-New Yorker worked with DDB in his home country and served as CCO at Y&R before he replaced a departing Eric Silver in the agency’s Manhattan office almost exactly four years ago.

Eastwood brings an extensive portfolio to the new role; he scored the #5 spot on the Ad Age “most awarded” list for 2013, and his name has appeared atop the credits for recent campaigns featuring everything from bearded, lottery-playing hipsters to seniors who never remember to wear their condoms.

Beginning next month, Eastwood will report directly to JWT global president Gustavo Martinez. He will be the first to fill the global CCO role since the 2009 departure of Craig Davis, who left to rejoin the continent of Australia.

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There will be a major changing of the guards–well, eventually–at JWT’s top ranks as Gustavo Martinez has been tapped to succeed Bob Jeffrey as the agency’s global CEO in 2015. Jeffrey, who’s served as JWT’s top exec for 15 years, will continue in his role as chairman/worldwide CEO through 2014. In a statement regarding his eventual replacement, Jeffrey says, “Over the past few years, Gustavo and I have cultivated a relationship of mutual admiration and respect. He is passionate about the business, devoted to clients and understands that the key asset of the business is the caring, nurturing and understanding of its people. Gustavo Martinez is the future of JWT.” Couldn’t have ended it with a better exclamation point, we say.

While he awaits his move to top of the heap at JWT, Martinez (pictured) will assume the the role of global president of the WPP-owned agency network effective Feb. 2014. The exec currently serves as president for Europe and Asia at McCann Worldgroup, where’s he spent nearly the last three years. Martinez initially joined the Worldgroup from Ogilvy back in early 2011, replacing Brett Gosper as president of the European region. He subsequently moved up the charts at McCann, taking on more responsibility as co-leader of the agency’s Global Brand Community a year later. According to Campaign Asia-Pacific, McCann hasn’t made any announcement yet as to who Martinez’s potential replacement will be.

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