What sucks is that they own the rights to his image, and they have like 500 something hours of footage of him filmed (I read on Buzzfeed), so they can keep running commercials with him in it for quite some time, which has got to sting as you're watching from home. I guarantee it. Well, at least he'll have some nice suits for any upcoming job interviews. I know what you mean though about it being shocking. Feels like the end of an era. It's like if someone fired Cal Worthington and his dog Spot from the car dealership, or Larry H. Parker from his law offices. After a while they become such a part of local or national pop culture that you come to think of them as untouchable.
Well he's 64 and has a boatload of cash coming to him according to that article. Pretty nice retirement...
I guarantee it... They're still paying him $250,000 per year for the next four years to use his likeness, so I'm sure they will. Plus he's the face of the brand, so unless they score someone more recognizable like George Clooney to be their spokesman, they'll still play his commercials and slowly work someone else in.
On the video it says the board still has to work out the details of his future involvement and compensation.
He claims that the board fired him to silence his criticism of the "direction the company was heading". Their business model seems pretty straight-forward. I wonder what "direction" they were taking that made him so vocal that they were forced to can him. Were they switching to Halloween costumes or becoming a primary provider of clown suits? Were they hiring 6-year-old Chinese kids to make the merchandise? Anyway, they were showing photos of him on CNN the other night when the story borke, and one was of him standing next to a grinning Leonard Nimoy.
He started the business. It seems unbelievable they can fire the boss, who created the company and made it successful. It is depressing, to me.
Well, given the specific product being sold here - men's suits - it seems unlikely that they'll do what I initially suspected, which is replace the 'old guy' with a bunch of angst-ridden teenagers like what you find in 99% of commercials these days, because those kind of people don't buy suits. (And as has been pointed out, MW can still run any ad with Zimmer in it if they want to.) So it may well be that Zimmer really WAS fired because he spoke out against the board....
The video stated negotiations are still ongoing. They may or may not be able to continue using his likeness in commercials. I think it is a mistake for the board to get rid of "the face of Men's Wearhouse". There could, potentially, be backlash from it... especially if he chooses to speak negatively about the company he created.
He automatically owns his likeness. Should it go to court, the board of directors would find it almost impossible to take that away from him. They will, most likely, have to pay him for acting in their commercials... IF he is willing to support the company which fired him.
Actually, although you have a right against use of your publicity for commercial purposes, but you can contract that right away. Even if you contracted the right away five years ago with differing expectations, you still contracted it away. Hell, under some circumstances, your parents can contract them away for you, as Brooke Shields found out when her parents agreed for her to appear in nude photos when she was 10 (yes, that's kind of fucked up, but that's an entirely different story). She later wanted them to stop using the photos, they refused, and the New York court said that they didn't have to. So, if he signed a contract for them to use his image, he contracted away his right to prevent them from using his image for commercial purposes.
While I agree with you insofar as I kind of feel bad for the guy since he founded the company, he also chose to go public with it, so them's the breaks when you put your fate in the hands of the board and/or shareholders. All of a sudden, I'm getting a glimpse of a green tailor-suited George Zimmer on a hoverboard going all Norman Osborn and throwing pumpkin bombs at the board for firing him, while cackling "You're all going to burn for this! I guarantee it!."
All he needs to do is read Steve Jobs book....after the company gets into trouble, he could save the company...and transcend the very corporation he founded..
I read in an article that although he has been "fired", he still owns nearly 4 per cent of the company's stock. The article also stated that he holds the most individual stock, so he can still be a pain in their asses.
If he had contracted for unlimited use of his image, I doubt the board of directors would be negotiating with him. They would simply use it.