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ASOS is a UK online fashion store, selling women’s and men’s fashion, celebrity clothing, designer clothes and accessories. They recently dumped their entire Affiliate program, set up initially in 2004, which soon generated 25 to 30 % of their sales.

The problem was ASOS having issues with Affiliates bidding on trademarks and problems with commissions being paid more than once for the same sale. ASOS first tried cleaning out their program by reducing commissions, shortening cookie lifespan and kicking out Affiliates who didn’t follow the rules.

But in 2006 ASOS stated they would increase their investments in magazine advertising, and reducing their affiliate budget. With a now already infamous quote, ASOS CEO Nick Robertson made clear – in a particular way - the Affiliate program had been dumped entirely. The quote in question :

“Next year we'll reintroduce affiliate marketing, but as it should be. No silly commissions being paid to grubby little people in grubby studios growing income at our expense, getting in the way of genuine sales.”

After the first publication of the quote, a small uproar of indignation among affiliates became known in the online marketing world as “Grubbygate”. Robertson decided to hide for a couple of weeks in order to avoid having to answer questions about his somewhat poorly expressed feelings on Affiliates, Affiliate Marketing and the unsatisfying nature of sales they generate.

Robertson has now decided to end the silence and comment his own words that, in retrospect, were a product of extreme dissatisfaction with his Affiliates. ASOS allegedly had to spend all it’s time policing Affiliates, who registered one site and used the codes on an other, generated traffic on discount codes even though they were told not to, didn’t update creatives so people came looking for products out of stock ... The good Affiliates got punished with the bad ones, but Robertson isn’t eager to re-invest in Affiliate Marketing.

However, Robertson stated he regretted having used that kind of language.

“It was aimed at the very unscrupulous ones. My apologies that it tarnished everyone. But without a doubt, there are some unsavoury characters in the affiliate world and we happened to deal with a lot of them.”

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