The video has become a major point of contention for this case.
Ms. Johnson said in her original lawsuit that there was video of
Mr. Martinez making racist comments. It later came out that the
tape in question was from a company meeting at a hotel in Miami. On
March 14, Ms. Johnson's team filed an amended filing that sought to
submit a DVD into evidence, saying the disc "contains an excerpt of
the video footage from the May 2015 meeting in Miami."
That was a reference to a company off-site meeting where Ms.
Johnson's original suit said Mr. Martinez made inappropriate
comments. "On or about May 18, 2015, Martinez addressed a group of
approximately 60 employees for a global meeting to pilot a new
agency method for generating ideas," the suit said. "The previous
night, there had been a large party at the hotel's night club
attended by mostly African American guests. At the start of his
presentation, Martinez described the hotel as 'tricky.' He
explained that he 'found . . . different and strange characters in
the elevator.' He further explained, 'I was thinking I was going to
be raped at the elevator,' but 'not in a nice way.'"
The judge assigned to the lawsuit against JWT and its now-former
chairman-CEO Gustavo Martinez on March 21 ordered the plaintiff to
provide copies of a contested video to him and the defendants for
review.
"We were all in attendance at the JWT two-day meeting at the
Viceroy Hotel in Miami on Monday, May 18 and Tuesday, May 19,
2015," said a joint affidavit from Lynn Power, president of JWT New
York; Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer of JWT; Amy Avery,
global head of analytics at the agency; Jinal Shah, global digital
strategic director and many other JWT senior executives.
"We are aware of several problems that occurred at the hotel
before and during those meetings," the document said. "We know that
the police were dealing with a rowdy crowd at the hotel on a Sunday
night and we are aware that employees believed that they had things
stolen at the hotel. Events at the hotel caused apprehension
amongst the JWT employees."
The document continued: "We heard the comments that Gustavo made
that are alleged in the complaint and at issue in this motion.
Given the content of the highly unusual events occurring at the
hotel in the night before the meetings, combined with Gustavo's
lack of command of the English language and the fact that he was
making a joke about himself, we did not find the comments he made
offensive. It was clear that Gustavo was trying to ease the tension
that we were all feeling and the people in the room seemed to
appreciate his attempt to do so."
It also said: "While we would not have chosen the same words he
did, it was clear that he was not creating an uncomfortable
atmosphere for the company's employees, but rather he was sincerely
trying to make us feel as relaxed for the important day ahead
despite an unfortunate series of events outside of the company's
control."
Other affidavits filed include one from Keni Thacker, senior
event technology specialist. He filmed the video in question and
said in the document that he is executive producer of Differenter,
JWT's diversity and inclusion program. "I have read the complaint
and some of the press coverage of same, which characterize the
comments that Gustavo Martinez made at the meeting as racist," he
said in the document. "I am African-American and I took
responsibility as executive producer of Differenter because
diversity is an issue I feel passionate about. The comments Gustavo
made during the meeting had nothing to do with race and I did not
feel at the time of the meeting or now that there was anything
racist about them."
His document also noted that the comments were regarding the
party the night before, which he said, "involved a large number of
young people (some of whom were African-American) in bathing suits.
The guests made such a mess of the room in which the meeting was to
be held that I and other meeting attendees had to get up around 4
a.m. on the day of the meeting to clean up so that the room would
be presentable for the meeting at 7 a.m."
A representative for JWT declined to comment further. Ms.
Johnson, the chief communications officer at JWT is currently on
paid leave. For this issue, JWT is now being represented by sibling
WPP communications shop Finsbury.
On Tuesday morning, TBWA announced that Anaka Kobzev, who worked
with Ms. Johnson on the communications team, was being named global
head of communications.
"We will be filing papers opposing the company's request to
prevent the public from seeing the video. Everything we have to say
will be in our papers," said Ms. Johnson's attorneys when asked for
comment.