Tumblr’s New Exec Talks About Advertising Plans

Tumblr wants to increase the amount of ad revenue its platform generates, and its latest executive hire has some ideas about how to accomplish that goal. Buzz Wiggins, who recently came on as Tumblr’s VP of ad product management, told AdAge that the blogging platform wants to foster a creative community that resembles YouTube’s while taking advantage of the branded content opportunities that would come with that shift.

Wiggins, who previously worked for ad tech platform Kargo, told AdAge he wants to monetize “every page view.” A feature that will aid that mission will be Tumblr’s upcoming partner program, which will give some of the platform’s top users the option to run ads on their blogs.

Wiggins noted that those top performers could also make money through branded content. “We do have these users that are making great content,” he said

. “They have influence over people. So, if we can come in and make native feeling ads …We can really get on par with what YouTube does, which is allow users to make money on the platform.”

This isn’t the first time Tumblr has been compared to YouTube. Back it 2014, rumors flew that Yahoo, which acquired Tumblr in 2013, planned to groom the blogging platform into a YouTube competitor. With the collapse of Yahoo’s original video infrastructure and the company’s subsequent sale to Verizon, those plans seem to have fallen by the wayside; however, Tumblr now looks ready to invest more resources into its creative community, and the result could be enticing for advertisers.