WPP’s star act offers to resign after sexist remarks |
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Published
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Fri, 21 Oct 2005 19:05
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Neil French, who unabashedly allowed people to describe him as "the best advertising copywriter that ever lived", tendered his resignation following a remark in which he described female colleagues as "crap".
61-year-old French was a creative consultant with WPP, a global advertising and marketing company. His work for clients such as Chivas Regal is often regarded as matchless. He offered to resign after reportedly describing women creative directors as “crap” who would inevitably “wimp out and go suckle something”. He reportedly made this comment after being asked why women were not adequately represented in senior creative positions at advertising agencies.
Nancy Vonk, co-chief creative officer at the WPP in Toronto, said that though she felt "honoured" for being counted by him as one of his friends, her esteem had its limits. She said she was “still partially paralysed” by his observations.
WPP is, however, still studying transcripts of his speech made in Toronto, during an industry event, before deciding about accepting Mr French's resignation.
French is reportedly notorious for his "politically incorrect" views. He was also described as "the Howard Stern of advertising". He has been a creative consultant to WPP since 2002. French’s task also involved training and inspiring creative talent, particularly in Asia and Latin America.
Whether Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, had accepted Mr French’s resignation is still in the dark.
Adding fuel to fire were his comments after tendering resignation where he said: “What I did say was to be a creative director requires 100 per cent commitment. People who have babies to look after can’t do that.” Also queried as to if he had any regrets about the controversial speech, he categorically said: “Absolutely not”.
Nancy Vonk, meanwhile, added: “Neil did us the favour of voicing a widely held view, albeit an extreme version. It’s an opportunity for us all — men, too — to confront something every bit as wrong and unacceptable as racism. Replace every comment Neil made about women with the word ‘black’ and take my point.”
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