Former Creative Director Sues Omnicom and TracyLocke, Alleging Sexual Harassment

The extended filing, embedded in full at the bottom of this story, alleges sexual harassment, gender discrimination and wrongful termination stemming from Dunbar’s “opposition to unlawful practices.”

Unlike most such lawsuits, this one was pitched directly to various publications by PR firm Berlin Rosen today along with a corresponding press release promoting that firm’s client, Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. In a statement, Dunbar called TracyLocke “the most blatantly sexist place I have ever worked.”

After this story initially ran, an agency spokesperson provided a statement.

“TracyLocke just received the complaint and is in the process of reviewing it,” the statement read. “Ms. Dunbar raised these allegations to the company for the first time after her termination. We then conducted a thorough investigation into the allegations. We were and continue to be confident that the allegations do not have merit and that TracyLocke maintains a safe and supportive environment for women and all employees to work.”

Neither TracyLocke nor Omnicom has named representative legal counsel or responded to the claims filed by the law firms Reardon Scanlon LLP, KCampbell-Law PLLC and Bursor & Fisher, P.A.

TracyLocke is part of the DDB network.

The suit states that Dunbar struggled to advance at TracyLocke after joining the agency as a freelancer in 2015 because leadership “repeatedly denied her requests for the full-time employment status and attendant benefits every male member of her team received” despite the fact that she had more experience in the field than most or all of her male colleagues. It goes on to claim that a performance assessment completed after she was hired as associate creative director in 2016 concluded that she “contribute[d] to the agency above and beyond [her] assigned job.”

Despite her performance, the filing claims Dunbar could not transcend TracyLocke’s “Band of Brothers” philosophy, which reinforced a “good old boys” approach to internal culture. It cites anonymous Glassdoor reviews claiming the company is “not a place for girls to get ahead,” among other such statements.

According to the document, Dunbar and other female agency employees experienced a “severe” work environment that included “degrading acts of sexual harassment.”

The filing goes on to detail instances in which male employees allegedly threatened Dunbar and touched her in “an unwanted and offensive sexual manner,” treating her as “a sex object and punching bag.” It also claims agency leadership and human resources ignored repeated complaints regarding the behavior of multiple male staff members.

In one instance, it claims, an executive seated Dunbar next to a client who proceeded to “[pass] her inappropriate notes, and [flirt] with her” during a meeting. When she later voiced her discomfort, the suit claims, the executive responded by laughing.

The document states that TracyLocke CEO Hugh Boyle repeatedly used a “derogatory and gender-specific c-word” in a 2017 meeting at the San Francisco offices of fellow Omnicom agency BBDO after decrying “PC culture.” It also claims another creative leader at the agency insulted Dunbar by calling her a “nagging wife” and “suggested taping [her] mouth shut.”

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