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If you are involved in the marketing or advertising department of any one of South Africa’s retail chains, be warned that some model agencies do not want your business. In fact, one agency in particular believes that working with you may well make them a “laughing stock.”

For the last five and a half years, 2oceansvibe has published a weekly feature called Tuesday Tabs. The feature showcases a famous model every week in a mildly risqué fashion shoot that they have been in – usually from the likes of Vogue magazine.Previous featured models have included Candice Swanepoel , Adriana Lima and Kate Moss .

The shoot can only be seen by clicking through from the front page to the article, and it is left up to the reader to decide if they want to see it. A short blurb is given for each model, sometimes including a link to their model agency.

This week we featured  a relatively unknown local model, Maritza Veer – using some pics we found of her shoot with international high-end fashion mag ‘Schon.’ The same pics are featured on a number of other websites. A search for “maritza veer schon” in Google produces 534,000 results. In the opening excerpt, we mentioned that she had previously done work with Truworths, and because she is South African, we also thought it would be cool to give a link to her agency, Fusion Models – just to send out some cool vibes.

Boy, was that a bad idea! Click ‘Continue Reading’ to witness an email exchange with Fusion Models director, Fiona Craig, that will blow your mind!

Below is the email exchange, from first email to last:

Name Fiona Craig

Message

Hi Seth,we saw your blog about Maritza Veer today.I have to say i would have appreciated a call to give you some up to date info about her and her extremely successful career rather than just say she’s worked for Truworths.I mean who cares,so has any old model in SA.What about mentioning Elle,Cosmopolitan,Australian Marie Claire,Italian Amica or any of the top campaigns she’s involved in????? very disappointing seeing as you are supposed to be Mr Blogger.

Fiona Craig

Director Fusion Models

Wow! No ‘thank you’ at all. Just ‘very’ disappointed and five question marks?????

Nonetheless, I made the changes she had mentioned, and wrote back. 

From: Seth Rotherham – 2oceansvibe.com [mailto:editor@2oceansvibe.com]

Sent: 25 04 12 11:21

To: fiona@fusionmodels.co.za

Subject: Re: Maritza Veer/2oceans vibe

Importance: High

Dear Fiona,

What an incredibly ungrateful email. We linked to your website, unsolicited, and all you have to say is that you’re disappointed? Tuesday Tabs is done on the spur of the moment every week and not something we go into great research over. the traffic it receives is massive.

All you had to do was email us and say that we might want to add Maritza’s extra accolades to the article – which I have now done – even though your approach and professionalism leaves a lot to be desired. Not even a thank you?

I am stunned by your brash, rude and naive approach to business and relationships.

Seth Rotherham

2oceansvibe Media

Maybe now there might be even the smallest glimmer of appreciation?

On 25 Apr 2012, at 11:40 AM, “Fiona”wrote:

Dear Seth

You may feel I am brash,rude and naïve,however my successful 25 years in this business obviously says otherwise.Might I say that wether Tuesday Tabs is done spur of the moment or not,in our industry it is absolutely vital the info regarding model careers is correct.Especially seeing as how successful she is becoming and as the majority of the images you have chosen to showcase are nudes,it is even more vital.Additionally in view of the fact you are telling me the traffic to this site is massive.

And BTW where did you get all the nudes? We do not have them on our site,and do not distribute them for blog purposes.

If you’d like to remove the link to our webste,please feel free,we deal directly with our clients both here and overseas,they do not source models for their specific projects via blogs.

Thank you.

Fiona

Wow, 25 years behaving like this? Imagine how successful she could have been?

She seems to have missed the point. I thought I should clarify.

From: Seth Rotherham – 2oceansvibe [mailto:editor@2oceansvibe.com]

Sent: 25 04 12 12:06

To: Fiona

Subject: Re: Maritza Veer/2oceans vibe

Thank you for clarifying. Although all I was talking about was your approach. Again, a polite “could you possibly add XYZ” is all it required. I’m not in your industry – I’m in the business of giving others exposure.

As I said before, the use of common courtesy and having the foresight to not burn bridges is the way we like to do business around here.

I’m sorry you do not feel the same way – something you have made abundantly clear. We will respect your wishes and refrain from ever promoting Fusion Models in a favorable light again.

All the best.

Seth

She wasn’t quite finished. when you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll, right?

From: “Fiona”

Date: 25 April 2012 12:28:36 PM SAST

To: “‘Seth Rotherham – 2oceansvibe’”

Seth with all due respect saying Maritza has worked for local clients like Truworths is hardly portraying Fusion in a favourable light,it makes my business a laughing stock to any other industry related reader.

And if you are in the business of giving other people exposure then surely you have an obligation to ensure the info is correct and up to date? My mail was also not as rude as you seem to think it is,I am sure you would have felt the same way if you as a professional were portrayed in any way less than the respect you deserve for your achievements in your field.

Thanx

Fiona

Not very nice at all, I thought. How very unpleasant!

There are two sides to every story and you can see them very clearly above. That said, I have nothing more to say on the matter at this juncture. I’d be interested to know what YOU think?

Do YOU think this a cool way to do business?

Not that any of this should matter to Fusion Models. Judging by the aforementioned emails and the fact that “none of their clients read blogs.”

By the way, if you ARE looking for a modeling agency to work with and an agency who wants to work with you  (I’m talking to the likes of Truworths, Woolworths, Edgars, Foschini etc.), we strongly endorse Full Circle Models , part-owned by 2oceansviber, Janez Vermeiren.

Sharne van der Westhuizen

Please bear in mind that comments are moderated, and can take up to an hour to process.

wow seth, you are so far up your own ass…

you whine like a child when things dont go your way.

no-one cares about how huge your digital winky is.

your ‘blog’ is a spam platform. gambling, advertising popcorn, reposted crap.

26 Apr 2012

Clearly she’s been in the industry too long then and doesn’t quite realise the power that blogs actually have. She also knows nothing of SEO, domain rankings, etc, etc (off topic I guess) -my point though, talk about shooting yourself in the foot and coming across as extremely rude. Full Circle all the way!

26 Apr 2012

Ask Fiona about her side biz with the ones on her books

That might raise her ire further Jon. Fill us in...........

( @ ) 26 Apr 2012

Hi there, "coolblogbro". Please note that comments are moderated, and take up to an hour to process, as we clearly stated at the bottom of the story. You'll notice that we posted the comment stating that your comment wasn't posted, too. Thanks for reading, SS.

26 Apr 2012

She spelt “whether” without the first “h”. That’s just ridiculous. I don’t have time for people like that.

26 Apr 2012

Does she have any idea how the above is gonna filter through? all the major models started out with SA department stores, and have grown from there. Can we get some comments from Truworths? She shoulda just let things be and “keep her bek”.

Come on now Seth…

I mean they have a blog ( http://fusionmodels.blogspot.com/ ), they must know what the are doing

Thanks Seth.

Was actually in the process of hiring some models for a few shoots.

Fusion will now be taken off the list, not because their models worked for Truworths, but because their Director is losing the plot about how powerful the internet can be.

Case in point.

what an unthankful bitch. reminds me of a previous client.

26 Apr 2012

I’m with Fiona on this one, sorry. I think she is well within her “rights” to be disappointed with the post. P.R needs to be carefully managed and 2ov is nowhere near as “exclusive” as the posters think it is.

26 Apr 2012

Talking about professionalism, publishing people’s full email addresses is scraping the longdrop. Surely David Thorne has taught you a thing or two about this.

and Janez, seriously? seriously?! He’s the biggest joke of the lot on Top Billing.

26 Apr 2012

all i can say is this has been a long time coming. ask anyone in the industry about this cow and they will agree. karma’s a bitch..

26 Apr 2012

Fiona, all you had to say was THANK YOU. That’s all. It doesn’t take much more than that. Your head is so big, but probably not as big as the cash your milking from your modeling herd around the world. Their careers finally end at 17 or 21 and you retire gracefully in one of your holiday homes somewhere in Hermanus or whatever…taking trips back and forth to some plastic surgeon in LA or Rio to get back the looks you never had. You have little parties with the SA jetset – talking about your fabulous lives. You’ll go through a string of husbands and then you’ll die like any other human being.

And coolblogbro,..why don’t you start your own blog and radio station and and and all the other stuff that is 2OV…get top brands to fall over their feet to sponsor the shite…and then you talk.

Jeez, nothing has changed in CT.

26 Apr 2012

She’s a terrible businesswoman. The problem is that everybody who bought a pose and a prebuild runway thinks they can be a successful model agency owner. Did she forget that its all about reputation and being nice can take you further than being an ungrateful biaaach.

26 Apr 2012

I love how Cape Town bloggers think they’re the be all and end all of South African blogging. Your posting of this email merely shows that you sought to 1. gain favourable support from your readers 2. further embarrass Fusion Models (which they’ve already done themselves) and 3. one up them to a larger audience because, well, you can. (Reminds me of a certain Mr. Cape Town a few months back…)

This just shows unprofessional behaviour on both parts, but more so yours. To think that smearing Fusion because through access to a larger audience is predictable and typical of Cape Town bloggers.

I suppose the knowledge that tone, manner and intention in email can often and easily be misinterpreted never crossed your mind (maybe a call would have helped?).

But YOU certainly know how to spin a story on your website.

26 Apr 2012

What does the actual model that’s in the middle of all this have to say????? – you see i used 5 questions marks.

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