Adidas Is Tumblr’s First Major Brand Campaign

Tumblr has sold a month-long campaign to Adidas.

Adidas launched its soccer Tumblr blog in time for the 2012 UEFA European Championship, which starts today across Poland and the Ukraine. The site will be promoted through paid placements in Tumblr’s “Radar” slot on the user dashboard.

Radar features a continually rotating selection of Tumblr blogs hand selected by the editorial team but which now can be purchased as an ad unit for an entire day.  Adidas will also promote the site on Tumblr’s “spotlight” page for sports blogs, where the ad will run three times wider than the teases for organic picks, according to Advertising Age.

Daneille Strle, Tumblr director of product, told AdAge that Tumblr has “been kind of selective as to who we’re engaging with for this opportunity … We’re trying to ramp up and do a lot of learning from these initial advertisers.”

It used to be a belief that a brand could only find success on Tumblr by offering engaging content. Now that paid media options are available, it adds another dimension.