How I Got Fired From the Job I Invented

New submitter frost_knight writes "Travel blogger Turner Barr discovered that his entire brand, image, and web personality has been hijacked by a multi-billion dollar company for use in a marketing campaign. 'The video for their marketing campaign was particularly creepy for me, as even my age and personality didn’t escape the level of detail spent on creating this doppelganger (they used a paid actor of course). ... I’m no longer even the first thing that comes up when you Google my brand name. I’ve turned down work opportunities and put on hold any future travel job plans to deal with lawyers, long distance phone calls, corporate executives and other such nonsense — all along feeling misled and patronized. This situation has been extremely confusing for not only myself, but also for participants in company’s marketing campaign who message me thinking that I am am part of the company.'"

Adecco will not win. IP law protects Barr

[raymorris]

They are protecting Barr. Are you under the impression that just because Adecco typed TM they'll win?
It is pretty clear that Barr's trademark has priority under law and he's virtually guaranteed to win. It seems Barr and Adecco just haven't yet agreed on how much Adecco needs to pay Barr to make up for their employee's misbehavior .

Official Rules: No Infringing, Copying Tolerated

[theodp]

Contest Rules [adeccowaytowork.com]: "Participants warrant and agree that their entry, including all content of the entry will at all times be (a) the original independent creation of the participant submitting it, (b) exclusively and solely owned by the participant (including the copyright therein), and (c) free of any claims, including copyright or trademark claims by other parties. Participants further warrant and agree that their entry, including all content of the entry, in whole or in part (a) does not and will not infringe any third party rights (including intellectual property rights or rights of privacy, publicity or confidentiality), (b) has been created by the participant and if the content features a person other than the participant, the person(s) featured in the content (and their parent/legal guardian if they are under the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence) must have consented to their image being used in connection with this contest, and (c) is not unlawful, fraudulent, defamatory, obscene, profane, derogatory, pornographic, sexually inappropriate, politically incorrect, violent, abusive, insulting, scandalous, inflammatory, harassing, threatening, racist, ageist, sexist, objectionable with respect to religion, origin or gender, not suitable for children under 15, or otherwise unsuitable for publication or objectionable."

Adecco statement on their Facebook page

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.facebook.com/AdeccoWayToWork

We have seen and heard your sincere concern about our recent youth employment initiative and take your feedback very seriously. We deeply regret if we hurt Turner Barr. This was never our intention when we set up our “Around the World in 80 Jobs” contest. We clearly see that Turner is an inspiration to many people. We feel there should be more of such initiatives that inspire people to live their dreams and achieve their ambitions. Unfortunately, we moved forward with a name and contest that clearly upset Turner and his community. We sincerely apologize for that mistake.

When Turner contacted us about his concern, and we understood the full situation, we immediately engaged with him to try to make things right. Unfortunately, we have been unable to find common ground so far.

Most of all, we are sorry that an initiative we truly care about – youth unemployment – has been negatively received.

Your Adecco Way to Work Team

Re:George Zimmer?

[manu0601]

I guaranteed that they'll end up suing Barr. For something. It doesn't really matter what, as long as he can't afford to defend himself.

Here would be an interesting usage of crowd funding

Re:George Zimmer?

[Jherek Carnelian]

God what a smug lawyered-up non-apology. It is all about deflecting blame and nothing about actually accepting responsibility. Hell, by the end they are practically blaming the victim for not only what they did to him, but for hurting his own cause. It is hard to imagine a more arrogant response.

Do they honestly think such crap will do anything other than fan the flames higher? Does this shit work on anyone?

Corporate Personhood

[boorack]

IF by seeing this fiasco you don't realize that corporate "persons" are psychopaths, I don't know what will do. I'm reading their disgraceful lawyered-up damage-control non-apologies and I wonder if it is possible for them to actually take reponsiblity and fix things the way it should be done. They might be unable to do so by good will because psychopaths don't recognize good from wrong. Money is the only think they care, so asking them gently about fixing it won't work. Big enough stick is the only thing that will work. Turning their ad campaign into a messy blow by flooding their twitter/facebook/whatever with comments about them being thieves etc. is the best one we have - and I'm delighted to see it in full force. Hurting corporation's bottom line is the only way to force it to behave properly.

That beard..

[bj00rn]

I don't know.. It seems to be a bit calculated and scripted to me. I mean, that "depression-beard" and those staged photos.. I bet they didn't come together "in the moment". There's some core of truth in there somewhere I'm sure, but the whole thing on top doesn't seem 100% genuine. I have a feeling most of this stems from working with his lawyer in preparation for a lawsuit. With that said, Adecco is a piece of crap unethical company. There was a social dumping scandal here in Norway a couple of years ago where they really showed their true colors. So I hope he gets them either way.

Re:Corporate Personhood

[spiritplumber]

I'm all for corporate personhood as long as: 1) The corporation, as an entity (without being represented by a human or collection of humans), can pass a turing test. 2) The corporation can be physically put in jail, or killed.