re: #8 Gus

No reason?

A disagreement between Mr. Zimmer and the board appeared to be the reason for the sudden dismissal, though it was not immediately clear what that disagreement was. Some analysts suggested that the conflict might be over the company’s efforts to appeal to younger customers, which could have been hampered by Mr. Zimmer’s continued presence in ads.

“Over the past several months I have expressed my concerns to the board about the direction the company is currently heading,” Mr. Zimmer said in a statement provided to CNBC. “Instead of fostering the kind of dialogue in the board room that has in part contributed to our success, the board has inappropriately chosen to silence my concerns through termination as an executive officer.”

…

Jerome Reisman, a partner with Reisman Peirez Reisman & Capobianco in Garden City, N.Y., said it was irresponsible of the company to be so vague about the reasons for Mr. Zimmer’s departure.

“When you are a public company, when you have shareholders, when you report to the media, you have a duty to disclose the cause of any major material termination,” he said. “Zimmer, at all times, was the poster boy for this company — what Frank Perdue was to Perdue Chickens, what Tom Carvel was to the Carvel Ice Cream Company.”

…

The company maintains the legal right to his image and 500 hours of film of Mr. Zimmer, Mr. Jaffe said in a note to clients.

That last bit makes the public firing even less understandable. The more acrimonious the public thinks the split was the less positively they’ll respond to MW using Zimmer’s old image like some zombie spokesperson. This whole thing looks to have been handled very poorly.