You'd have to be living on the moon to miss the Wonga story currently doing the rounds.
This is certainly going to hurt them financially, and no doubt they are in full negative media disaster recovery mode with a highly tuned PR agency churning out spin and trying to turn the tide.
But once the dust has settled (which it will) I wonder what the final analysis will be on all this exposure?
If nothing else, it has been a monumental link building exercise for them with links to their site from about every news-agency on the planet, combined with a multitude of blogs, forums and articles.
Then there is social media, which although the content and tone is negative and derogatory, there's still plenty of links back to their site being dropped.
Will reputation management be an issue?
I suspect not. After a very expensive marketing campaign, they are now a household name, and most people have already formed an opinion. The chances are if you don't need to utilise their services then you will have quite a low opinion of them, and any news coverage just reinforces what you already knew or suspected.
But for those people that are their customer base, it's unlikely their own financial position has changed, or their grasp on the implications of borrowing from payday lenders. Once they are over this crisis and have put their hand in their pocket, I'll bet 90 days from now it will be business as usual, with a secure and solid linking campaign that will have saved them a fortune in marketing.
So is all publicity good publicity?
For Wonga, I suspect it might just be 
What does anyone else think?
