That's what Breakits Matilda Andersson writes in a column.
“Follow and stop shopping”.
“I am so disappointed and sorry to have supported your brand”.
“You don't deserve success in your brand”.
“BOYCOTT”.
Aftonbladet's revelation about how the influencer and entrepreneur Matilda Djerf treats its employees has caused the Djerf Avenue founder's Instagram comments section to flood with hate and calls to boycott the brand. The above mentioned examples are four out of over two thousand comments. Neither the main character himself nor the company has so far responded to a single post. There is total silence on all their social channels.
But from others it is all the louder. Instagram, Linkedin, discussion pages, blogs. On the one hand the furious hatred of followers and customers, feelings and experiences of betrayal, on the other hand opinion texts about young leaders, the guarding of female managers and about how no one questions Djerf Avenue's CEO, Rasmus Johansson (who is also Matilda Djerf's partner) to answer.
What will happen now? That the company, which in 2023 had a turnover of close to SEK 340 million with a profit of SEK 31 million, will have to manage the crisis in one way or another is self-evident. The only thing unclear is when and how it will happen.
But we do know one thing: the brand has taken a serious hit. And here we come back to the vulnerability of influencer brands; how the main recipe for success can turn into the company's biggest weakness in a single second.
Matilda Djerf has fans all over the world and has gone all out to capitalize on the fact that “you are good as you are”. The disappointment from the followers and customers is huge when it has now emerged that she does not live as she teaches (here it can be easy to want to rant a little, but I leave that to others).
My colleague Julia Lundin wrote a wise column about this already in 2022 – in connection with the influencer Ida Warg first attended a charity gala with the aim of combating trafficking only to make the not-too-thought-out decision to go to a “pimp and hoes” party the week after and brag about it on Instagram. The followers were unsurprisingly furious and the beauty company with Ida Warg's name had to deal with a crisis (so much so that the company's CEO distanced himself from Ida herself).
There are a number of other examples: like when the restaurateur and the television profile Paolo Roberto was exposed as a sex buyer and his brand immediately disappeared from store shelves, Isabella Löwengrip was accused of lying about her blog statistics and that was the beginning of her, and the beauty brand Löwengrip's, crisis. Not to mention Margaux Dietz and the youtube video.
In the disclosure about Matilda Djerf, it appears, among other things, that the influencer must have his own toilet in the office where no employees are allowed to go (and on one occasion when an employee did visit, another employee was forced to clean before Matilda Djerf could visit the toilet).
About the fact that the influencer must have her own toilet, the company says that “it is a measure we have introduced to help her stay healthy. This is particularly important as many of our campaigns, shoots and other key activities depend on her participation”.
And precisely that puts the finger on influencer companies' biggest weakness: the enormous dependence on a single person.
There is no team unless the star himself is there. Perhaps this is precisely why no one really bothered to build a good corporate culture (or recruited more senior leaders). Because without the influencer himself, there is no brand – so why should you care about the rest of the employees? But perhaps the case of Djerf Avenue can now be what makes the influencer companies realize the importance of starting to spread their risks on a few more heads.
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