This ad campaign was full of hot air.
A former product manager for a men’s clothing brand in the Flatiron District claims the company used his name and likeness in an ad campaign that mocked him and twisted his name to sound like slang for flatulence, he said in a lawsuit.
Cael Schwartz last worked for Birddogs and its boss, Peter Baldwin, two years ago, so was surprised to see a cartoon character who looked like him, with the name “Cael,” in an Aug. 7 email to customers with the title, “WE F—ED UP,” claiming to have made a massive error in ordering product.
The cartoon image included three men standing around a pile of dark blue Birddogs boxes.
The “bizarre and criminal” campaign implied Schwartz was “incompetent,” he said in court papers. SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF NEW YORK
Cael Schwartz said he stopped working for Birddogs two years ago. X @asap_cael“We ordered one million too many gym shorts and joggers. By we, we mean Cael. It was 100% Cael.”
Another of the cartoons included the headline, “HOW CAEL ORDERED 1,000,000 PAIRS OF JOGGERS” over an image of a confused-looking man scratching his head.
When he asked Birddogs to stop using his name and image, Schwartz claimed the company changed the character’s name to “Gael Fartz.” SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF NEW YORK“The email includes at least four likenesses of Cael, each of which depicts him as hopelessly lost professionally,” he said in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit against Birddogs and Baldwin, whom Schwartz described in the litigation as a “micro-manager.”
The images went to “hundreds of thousands” of people, and when Schwartz complained, Baldwin simply changed “Cael” to “Gael Fartz,” according to the lawsuit.
He wants a judge to order the company to stop the ads, along with unspecified damages.
Baldwin and Birddogs did not respond to a message seeking comment.
