Rich Tong

Yesterday Betabeat broke the news that Tumblr fashion director Rich Tong was hoping to get big brands to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for product placement and branded content from Tumblr's "select bloggers".

In essence, Tumblr was acting like a talent agency, promising work from a group of writers who use their platform. The proposal offered 15 posts with the "content to be agreed upon prior to the start of the week". For $10,000 the brands could get some face time with the bloggers at a private party and for a negotiable price brands could get product placement from all 20 select bloggers.

Betabeat has learned however, that Tumblr had no formal contract with any of these bloggers. In fact, the bloggers Betabeat spoke with had no idea their services were being promised, no clue about the terms of the proposal and were blissfully ignorant that Tumblr was asking to be paid hefty sums for their work.

"It makes total sense," said one select blogger who spoke to Betabeat by phone. "They need to start earning money, and writing about brands, product placement, that is a good way to do it."

Didn't it bother her that Tumblr was making money off this arrangment, asked Betabeat. "No, they get paid, but I get to attend the events and break interesting stories on my blog."

Betabeat explained that, according to Mr. Tong's proposal, the bloggers would be submitting 15 posts per week, not to their own blogs, but to the Tumblr's owned by the brands paying the fees. "Oh, wait really?" the blogger asked. "In that case, I would definitely want to be paid, because I would no longer own the content."

A further wrinkle is the possible legal issues surrounding paid blogging. If Tumblr is accepting money from brands and assigning writers to produce advertorial content with product placement, that needs to be disclosed. Otherwise, its a violation of the FTC rules governing paid blogging.

As one angry designer told Betabeat yesterday, "They are trying to have us pay for Tumblr bloggers to come to our shows, which is ridiculous. We would never pay a journalist to come cover us, so why would we pay Tumblr?”

Betabeat reached out to Tumblr with the specifics of this post, but they declined to comment.

Tumblr Fashion Director Rich Tong

Earlier this year Tumblr was the toast of fashion week. The company's fashion director, Rich Tong, negotiated access for influential Tumblr users to cover swanky events. The bloggers, once the red headed step children of Fashion Week, got access beyond their wildest dreams. The brands and designers got their shows covered on a hip social network that drove a ton of traffic and engagement. It was a win-win.

Things are playing out a little differently this time. It started with the proposal Mr. Tong circulated to fashion brands and agencies. Unlike last year, Tumblr is now asking to be paid.

The proposal asked for $100,000 to have 4 of Tumblr's "select bloggers" produce 15 posts for the brand's Tumblr during the week, with the "exact nature of the content to be agreed upon prior to the start of the week."

For $150,000 brands could get ad placement on the official NY Fashion week Tumblr. For $350,000 they could get ad placement on the Tumblr tagged "fashion" page.

For $10,000 big fashion brands could spend a little quality time with the 20 select bloggers at a private event. Product placement was also offered "At cost", with the "influential tastemakers" being promised at a group rate.

It was an attempt to find a revenue stream for a company that thus far has focused little on making money. But the execution left something to be desired.

"They clearly don't understand the first thing about ad buying," said an agency rep with more than a decade in digital sales who received Mr. Tong's proposal. "They didn't explain how these ads would be served or offer us any way to track them, even through a third party. How am I supposed to present that to a client?"

Prior to becoming Fashion Director at Tumblr, Mr. Tong co-founded two fashion startups, Weardrobe and Index F. He also worked as a front end developer at UNICEF. None of these positions involved client services or ad sales, which he now handles as fashion director at Tumblr.

"He is David Karp's friend and that seems to be his main qualification for this job," said one very angry designer. "Now they are trying to have us pay for Tumblr bloggers to come to our shows, which is ridiculous. We would never pay a journalist to come cover us, so why would we pay Tumblr?"

No one Betabeat spoke with thought that Tumblr was a bad platform for fashion, quite the opposite. The ease of posting images and re-blogging items makes it a terrific platform which has driven a lot of eyeballs to brands and designers. "But they need an experienced ad sales team and someone who knows how to be diplomatic when they are turning people down," said one brand manager.

Numerous sources bemoaned the lack of basic analytical tools. Tumblr's inability to deliver these features made their requests for paid blogger placement and big name ad sales particularly galling.

"When I go into a meeting with a client to talk about Tumblr, I have to sit there and count out the number of notes on each post by hand, literally," said one frustrated agency rep. "We would pay to not have to do that."

Betabeat reached out to Tumblr for comment and will update with their response.

Update: This is perhaps a response....

Update 2: Nope, not a response, just a quirk of Tumblr. These two didn't like my post, but a post by Mike Hudack in defense of Tumblr, which was a response to a Tumblr post by Elizabeth Spiers.

What me worry?

Yesterday Betabeat wrote a post about some of the frustrations folks in the fashion industry have been venting about Tumblr--on their personal Tumblrs of course. Well, apparently, the story struck a nerve. Raman Kia, the Head of Digital Marketing at Starworks Group, laid things out in a post titled Exposed: The Actual Problem With Tumblr: (The text, below, has been lightly edited for brevity.)

Related: The Fashion Industry Wants Tumblr to Get its Fucking Act Together

My team and I represent 15 of the most prestigious and powerful brands in the fashion space. I am also married to the aforementioned Jessica Coghan of Digitalista fame. I have this year tried on two occasions to work with Tumblr on a professional level. So, I am coming to the table from a position of truth and authority.

In the first instance we invited Tumblr to a meeting with one of our clients. I am not in a position to reveal any names but I can assure you that this brand is one of the largest online retailers of luxury fashion globally. The meeting was set to discuss mutually benefitting opportunities. So, it came as a surprise to my client that the person representing Tumblr at this meeting had no idea who my client was. Let me just put this in perspective: This is one of the biggest retailer of luxury fashion in the world (did I already say that?) – and probably one of the most reputable and prestigious. It’s like saying I am the Director of Automotive but I’ve never heard of BMW or Mercedes!

Like I said, my team and I represent 15 of the most prestigious fashion brands in the world. You would think we would be treated with professionalism. So, let me ask you: do you think I will in good conscience recommend a paid partnership between a client and Tumblr at this point in time?

NO! Let me make it even more clear ABSOLUTELY NOT! My team and I are just the kind of people that make social media platforms really rich. We have been spending dollars on Facebook since media programs have been available; we have been part of every media based beta program on twitter; we were one of the very first to do a paid promotion with a fashion brand on Foursquare; and I am almost certain that under our guidance our clients were one of the very first handful of fashion brands to join Instagram, and for what it’s worth Tumblr.

Let me be clear our experience with all of these platforms has not always been without it’s problems. Not all Facebook reps have been fantastic, Twitter support for the longest time was hard to come by, Tristen Walker for a long time was a lone ranger at Foursquare – you get the picture – but I can with my hand on my heart say one thing with full confidence: at a senior level all of these networks and platforms showed us empathy in the face of our concerns.

So far Tumblr has behaved with prejudice, without empathy, and without apology and, in doing so, it has bitten the hand it hopes will feed it someday. So make no mistake Tumblr can not correct this by developing platform analytics – it needs a change of regime and a change of culture.

Thanks
Raman Kia
PS. This blog was written using wordpress. I love Tumblr. I have a Tumblr page. It is really fun – but then again so is the Disney store.

In the post, Mr. Kia pointed out that he has had terrific experiences working with other small startups like Foursquare and Instagram.

A number of media sources in New York had aired this kind of grievance before, often directed pointedly at Tumblr's fashion director Rich Tong. But this is the first time a major agency in the fashion industry has publicly derided Tumblr's business practices and given specific, if guarded, examples.

Tumblr president and resident grown-up John Maloney issued a terse response on his Tumblr: "Gradatim Ferociter" which translates loosely as, "step by step, courageously".