The German entrepreneur Jeremy Fragrance, whose real name is Daniel Schütz, reaches a lot of people with his perfume advertising. He has 6.6 million followers on TikTok alone, and the social network is extremely popular, especially among younger people. Fragrance was also the advertising face for an Aldi Nord campaign and wants to shoot a reality documentary with the Sky broadcaster.
Jeremy Fragrance made an appearance at the OMR Festival 2023, a digital marketing and technology event in Hamburg. This was moderated by Roland Eisenbrand, who has been Head of Content at the OMR since 2014. The whole, 20-minute performance can be seen on YouTube. There, approval is expressed in many comments under the video.
Promotion of the “winner mindset”
Fragrance enters the stage with the words “Power, power, strength‘ he shouts fervently into his microphone before explaining to his audience that success depends above all on having the right mindset. “Winner mindset, autosuggestion, make a brand out of you’, he repeats his alleged formula for success several times at the end.
One could mistake Jeremy Fragrance’s entire bizarre lecture, which he delivers on a stage with the Vodafone logo in the background, as a satire on influencers and life coaches. Sentences like “The energy, people need the energy‘, and Fragrances brags about his financial freedom and fortune at one point:
“I earn more than Sat1 moderators who invite me, I have more ratings than ProSieben or something.
Jeremy Fragrance is not only ultimately free, as he says.
“Because I too am God’s slave, and that’s a good thing, because otherwise I would be God.”
The Tagesspiegel’s social media team summarized Jeremy Fragrance’s performance and criticism in a short YouTube video:
Sexist statements in several places
One can assume that Jeremy Fragrance means what he says on the festival stage seriously. Sexist statements are made in several places. Once, when asked by moderator Roland Eisenbrand, he explains that he doesn’t take any drugs and, in addition to his “pretty bad mindset” “also ethically very cool on the way” may be. “I could make it very easy for myself, I could bang five girls a day, I could also fool everyone, I could tell you “Hm, ok, cool, I think what you are doing is good”. “I can’t do it, dude.“
Jeremy Fragrance uses the subjunctive here. He is ostensibly saying that he does not have sexual intercourse with five women a day because of his ethical standards, but at the same time his statement can be understood as a demonstration of what is possible: the successful businessman always has potential sexual partners available.
Elsewhere, he makes no secret of the fact that he likes to use sex with women to get a “great energy‘ in the face, i.e. improving his impact on other people, which being an influencer in front of the camera is entirely in line with his business interests.
At the same point, Fragrance tells of a case where “I just had sexual intercourse with a girlfriend, but I didn’t come, and I had such a great energy in my face. And then I realized why different things work. And then I had sexual intercourse with this girl as a test, three days in a row, before the first video, I make like four videos a day, without coming. And then I said: Ok, that’s blatant old man, but I can’t always order them somewhere and stuff like that, you know, that’s not possible either. But you’re already looking.”
Criticism from the advertising industry
In conversations among festival visitors, there was a lot of criticism of Jeremy Fragrance’s statements, writes the “Rheinische Post“. Critical voices were also heard from the advertising industry. Frank Behrendt from the agency “Serviceplan” writes on Twitter: “After today’s #Sexismus Fail at #OMR23, it’s now completely unbearable for me. Not a good idea from #Sky from my point of view to rely on such a guy, I have Wendler vibes.“
At the request of “t-online‘ the organizers of the OMR announced: ‘At the OMR Festival we are committed to cosmopolitan and diverse togetherness. Discrimination of any kind, harassment, (sexualized) violence and crossing borders have no place at the OMR Festival and are not tolerated.“We are in contact with those involved in the case.
It remains to be seen whether the criticism will resonate with Jeremy Fragrances’ target audience. In any case, at the end of his lecture, applause breaks out in the hall. Jeremy Fragrance shouts “Power, power, power, power dude, power, dude, cool” and hugs the moderator, who with the ironic words “I’m sorry I talked a little much“ goodbye.
