Overview

A crisis-communications and brand-reputation audit of Djerf Avenue after workplace allegations, evaluating the brand's public response, sentiment shifts, and the effectiveness of its remediation strategy, and proposing a 6–12 month recovery roadmap.

Problem

In late 2024, Swedish influencer-founded brand Djerf Avenue faced public allegations of a toxic workplace and staff mistreatment, amplified by major outlets and social media. The controversy threatened trust with employees, customers, press, and retail partners, especially given the brand's strong founder-led identity.

Solution

I reconstructed the public timeline of events from the first Swedish investigation through the brand’s apology and subsequent press cycles, and then layered on a cross-channel sentiment analysis across Instagram, Twitter/X, Reddit, and major fashion and business publications. I combined social listening queries and press review to understand how quickly the story spread, how sentiment evolved over time, and how much of the discourse centered on the founder versus the company as a whole. From there, I mapped stakeholders – employees and former staff, customers and community, wholesale partners and editors, investors and founders – and assessed what each group needed to see to rebuild trust. I benchmarked Djerf Avenue’s response against other founder-led brand crises, looking for patterns in apology structure, governance changes, and transparency. Finally, I evaluated the strength of the brand’s communications against best practices: clarity of responsibility, specificity of promised actions, independence of oversight, and the presence (or absence) of measurable timelines and KPIs.

Results

The audit surfaced several key findings. In the immediate term, brand mentions spiked 3–10x with sentiment turning sharply negative, and criticism concentrated heavily on the founder due to the brand’s personality-driven positioning. The initial apology and statement acknowledged harm and pointed to external experts and leadership changes, but lacked independently verifiable timelines, public-facing KPIs, or mechanisms for staff to safely report issues and see change over time. Medium-term, coverage and commentary framed the story as a broader cautionary tale about founder worship in fashion and DTC, increasing reputational risk for wholesale partners, press, and collaborators. Financial reporting suggested mounting pressure on profitability and growth. Based on this, I built a 6–12 month recovery roadmap that paired internal changes (independent workplace audit, anonymous monthly pulse surveys, new senior operations/people leadership, mandatory manager training) with external moves (publishing an abstract of findings, employee ambassador storytelling with consent, a measured PR relaunch with clear milestones, and a charity-aligned capsule supporting workplace wellbeing). Together, these recommendations turn a one-off apology into a sustained governance and communications program.

What I learned

This project deepened my understanding of cross-channel reputation diagnostics, how to tie crisis communications to real operational change, and how founder-centric brands can rebuild credibility through measurable, transparent governance and communications.