Gustavo Martínez. Mauricio Sabogal. What were they thinking? What should we think?

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc – LMMIAMI.COM

• As you might have read in Adweek, Adage, the New York Post, etc, etc, Gustavo Martínez, JWT’s worldwide chairman & CEO, is in trouble.
• Big trouble.
• The accusations are simply too serious.
• If you ask me his career in the rarefied stratosphere of the ad racket is over.
• Deservingly or not.
• Even if he manages to prove his innocence and win in court, the whole snafu is so toxic that he will have to step down sooner rather than later.
• The damage might be irreparable by now.
• Particularly now that a British reporter went on the record confirming some of the charges.
• Ain’t no PR wizardry to turn this around at this point.
• The plaintiff, Mrs. Erin Johnson, is a PR expert herself (she is or was JWT’s chief communications officer).
• It must be noted that WPP has supported Mr. Martínez so far.
• Last I checked he was still holding on to his job and the company’s legal counselors had expressed that they consider the allegations to be unsubstantiated.
• It certainly comes as a surprise that an experienced executive like Mr. Martínez would be so foolish as to recklessly wear such alarming levels of racism and crudely misogynistic gallows humor on his sleeve.
• In the very presence of journalists and employees (?!?!).
• This is a guy that has held positions of the utmost responsibility in several global agencies all over the planet.
• If the accusations prove to have merit, was he always so viciously callous and foolhardy throughout his career?
• How did an alleged royal a-hole of this caliber survive and prosper for so long?
• Was he binge watching episodes of Entourage and trying to play Ari Gold in real life?
• Is all this a warped performance art project of some kind?
• A huge prank by a deranged stand-up comedian?
• Mr. Martínez is not a creative type (we know how copywriters and art directors can put their smelly feet in their mouths for the sake of sounding daring and original, which might explain why they rarely make it to the executive suite).
• Martínez comes from the account department.
• Inexplicable.
• Hey, I was rooting for him.
• I felt proud for him and for all of us Hispanics working in the business when a year or so ago he was named worldwide chairman & CEO of the largest and possibly most venerable ad agency on Earth.
• Now his career is in the doldrums and JWT’s brand is seriously tarnished.
• That’s not it.
• The cringe-inducing spectacle most possibly will continue in court.
• I mean, it might not be the best idea for WPP to settle out of it.
• To quote the short-fingered GOP front runner, those who settle out of court only open the flood gates to get their behinds sued again and again (oddly enough, said GOP front-runner is known to have settled out of court repeatedly).
• WPP, like any other large corporation would do, might have to tough it out in front of judge & jury if it doesn’t want to become the target of shakedowns left & right.
• It is a bleak lose-lose situation for them because, even if Mr. Martínez wins in trial, it’ll be painfully hard to climb back out of this hole.
• And now for the conspiracy theories: what if there’s more to the story than just a whistleblower seeking justice?
• I rarely am one to side with the powerful but the timing of it all shows some signs of a carefully planned vendetta.
• The proverbial cold meal.
• Even if the accusations are real.
• Revenge and justice are not mutually exclusive.
• The paranoid Latin American in me doesn’t rule out a neatly orchestrated coup d’état by a cartel of disgruntled rivals.
• Wouldn’t be the first time an intrigue of this kind plays out in Mad Avenue.
• Who knows.
• We’ll see.
• It looks like Mr. Martínez will soon have plenty of time on his hands to write a book with his own account of the events.
• The screenplay writes itself.
• The whole thing is just too salacious.
• Could be a great episodic show on Netflix.
• Benicio del Toro or Javier Bardem could play the role of Mr. Martínez opposite Emily Blunt or Carla Gugino as Mrs. Johnson.
• Coming soon to a screen near you (mark my words)
• LOL.
• Now let me tell you, seriously, if the allegations prove to be true, the only difference between Mr. Martínez and dozens of other Madison Avenue executives is that he was careless enough to voice his prejudices out loud and get caught.
• Madison Avenue –not unlike Wall Street or Silicon Valley- never was and for the most part still isn’t a color blind, equal opportunity workplace.
• All this talk about diversity is, in many cases, just that: talk.
• The fact that they have become better at concealing it doesn’t mean that lots of racists don’t remain out there conducting their business as usual.
• When I first walked the corridors of a Madison Avenue shop, late 90s, the only place you’d find a black or Hispanic employee was the mailroom.
• I’m in a position to infer that I was hired by a big New York general market advertising cathedral most possibly because they needed a token Hispanic in their creative department to handle a regional account.
• It didn’t hurt that I was, and still am, a brilliant, eager-to-please fully bilingual and deeply bicultural professional.
• Speaking of which, if you are a JWT client who’s thinking of putting your account on review due to this unfortunate turn of events, please call me: me and my team can do pretty much anything a Madison Avenue agency does or even better.
• Usually twice as fast and for half the price.
• (insert evil laugh track here)
• Now let’s move on to the other scandal gracing the pages of the marketing & advertising trade pubs these days: that of Kinetic’s CEO Mauricio Sabogal.
• To add insult to injury and a few migraines to Sir Martin Sorrell, Kinetic is a WPP company as well.
• Mr. Sabogal, who’s born & raised in Colombia, recently wrote a rambling, stream-of-consciousness blog post that got him into trouble.
• You can read it here (it’s in Spanish): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9Buu80N4Fi8J:whatsonfireblog.tumblr.com/post/107497501907/cuando-lo-llamamos-a-mauricio-para-que-escribiera+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
• This blog post was sent anonymously to WPP top brass asking for Mr. Sabogal’s head under the allegation that “he discriminates against Americans”.
• The accuser claims that in said blog post he referred to Americans as “gringos”.
• C’mon.
• The word “gringo” is neither discriminatory nor is it offensive.
• In Argentina, for example, fair-haired people are affectionately called “gringos”.
• Like “güeros” or “hueros” in México or “catires” in Venezuela.
• In some circles it would even be regarded as a compliment.
• It is no secret that a lot of Latin Americans go apeshit groupie for gringos.
• It is called “malinchismo” (which Mr. Sabogal also addresses in his long rant, not in the most articulate of ways perhaps).
• Is the word “cop” discriminatory to police officers?
• Is mom or dad offensive to parents?
• Is Boricua offensive to Puerto Ricans?
• Is Latino offensive to Latinos?
• Hey, there are dozens of similar colloquialisms in Spanish.
• Chilango (someone who hails from México City), cachaco (from Bogotá), paisa (from Antioquia), argento (from Argentina), porteño (from Buenos Aires), carioca (from Rio de Janeiro).
• The list is endless.
• Harmless slang.
• If anything, Mr. Sabogal made the mistake of appearing on the record utilizing unfiltered, excessively casual and conversational language.
• He’s a media guy, folks.
• Writing good prose is obviously not his forte.
• True: as the CEO of an international corporation he should’ve known better.
• I must say however that, despite the fact that he’s not an accomplished writer, what Mr. Sabogal says in his blog post is not entirely unreasonable, to wit: The Interview is indeed an insufferably bad movie that obtained immense publicity thanks to the diplomatic turmoil it caused.
• I apologize if someone feels offended but it is also true that, as Mr. Sabogal points out, a considerable percentage of the US population -of all races and walks of life- is notoriously insular and uncurious.
• Let me elaborate on this a bit: a considerable percentage of the world population of all races and walks of life is notoriously insular and uncurious.
• Why would the US of A be an exception to a perennial global malady such as provincialism and self-righteousness?
• In another passage, Mr. Sabogal says that some second generation Latinos who hold jobs in multinational corporations overseeing the Latin American region do not speak Spanish: true.
• He says that this is a professional disadvantage: true.
• It might not be the most diplomatic of remarks, but why is it offensive?
• It is a fact.
• He also describes how folks of a determined race or ethnicity who hold sway in a certain workplace tend to hire employees of his or her same race or ethnicity (is this untrue? no) and how the American vernacular has a tendency to reduce many names and phrases to acronyms, true as well, which he finds to be somewhat puerile.
• Hey, it’s just his opinion.
• In my case I think acronyms are great and make our lives easier.
• Yet by no means I can feel offended by Mr. Sabogal’s different POV (wink wink nudge nudge).
• He goes on and on (I know the feeling).
• He complains that Colombians and Mexicans are usually typecast as drug dealers and gardeners in Hollywood movies.
• Is this not true?
• Hey, it might be time for all of us –gringos and latinos- to grow up and thicken our skins a bit with this type of lost-in-translation minutiae.
• Eg; it is kind of funny when Latinos whine at gringos spelling Columbia instead of Colombia.
• By the same token, every time I hear a gringo use the expression “a Latino woman” I want to hug them.
• Get over it, folks.
• It’s just a typo.
• We Latinos are known to butcher the English language to a pulp and I’ve rarely heard a gringo complain about it.
• So.
• Here’s my verdict:

1) These two incidents not only hurt WPP and the executives involved: they are bad news for all of us Hispanics living and working in the US, both in the ad business and beyond. They rub off negatively on us, individually and collectively. Whether we like it or not, by sheer association, our reputation will suffer consequences tangible and intangible. It’s a definitely setback.

2) All in all, the accusations against Mr. Sabogal are pretty flimsy and seem to come from someone with a tin-eared, overly literal understanding of cultural customs and language nuances.

• The person who levied the accusations –who made a point of hiding his or her identity- possibly holds a personal grudge against him and is seeking retaliation.
• Mr. Sabogal screwed up, yes, but a perfunctory apology will suffice.
• If he loses his job over this it’d be pretty unfair.

3) Mr. Martínez’s situation is quite different though.

• Only a miracle can save his rear end at this point.
• I think he’s doomed, even if he’s innocent (how unfair would that be?).
• The whole thing is just too radioactive.
• But, hey, when or if his career in advertising comes to an end he should try his hand at running for office.
• There seems to be an awful lot of grassroots political support these days for clueless misogynist bigots with big filthy mouths and flashy careers in the private sector.

4) Mrs. Erin Johnson, the JWT whistleblower, has shown enormous courage at taking on WPP on this one.

• Even if it just was a matter of protecting her own career.
• Nobody’s asking her to be a hero but, as I was pointing out above, I’d like to ask her this: was this the first time she witnessed racist or sexist behavior in Madison Avenue?
• Or was this the first time it affected her directly?
• Once again, I’m not asking her to be a hero.
• She’s doing enough, more than most of us have ever done.
• She is showing enormous courage here.

 

The above is just a rhetorical question to all those who have worked in this industry and looked the other way one time or the other.

• Mrs. Johnson is a PR expert, she has a long experience in the business so she must be aware that she will also pay a price for this.
• If I were Sir Martin Sorrell I’d consider playing jiu jitsu with all of this mess and give her a promotion: Chief Diversity Officer of the Known Universe, or some such.
• Plus a lifetime achievement award for outstanding courage in the service of diversity.
• With lots of social media-friendly photo ops to plaster the pages of AdAge, Adweek and the like.
• It’d be a masterful PR stunt (no pun intended).
• Clients would be happy or at least morally forced to keep their business with JWT.
• The press and the socialsphere would wet its undies.
• Would you accept, dear reader, an offer of this nature if you were in Mrs. Johnson’s shoes?
• What would you think if she does?
• Whatev.
• I doubt this will be the case though.
• A chap like Sir Martin it’d be akin to caving in to blackmail.
• An invitation to more and more “extorsion” down the road.
• Hence, I’m afraid that she’s immolated herself too.
• From now on, she will be considered a “litigious” individual.
• Companies tend to shy away from hiring “litigious” people.
• Of course, they do it stealthily and with bullshit pretexts (not unlike the way they shy away from hiring women, blacks, Hispanics or LGBTs)
• Mrs. Johnson’d better make sure that the judge awards her a nice chunk of change.
• She will need it to exercise some career re-invention too.