

Wonga won The Startup100 awards, not Spotify - iamben
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/17/wonga-won-the-startup100-awards-not-spotify/

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gyardley
Award shows? Rigged? Shocking.

Generally speaking, if you want to win an award to put on your site, get some
press, and make VCs and potential acquirers notice you, you need to treat
getting that award as a combination of sales, marketing, and PR, and put some
budget behind it.

While people tend not to talk about this in public, every once in a while the
truth slips out, usually in inside jokes. For example, take a peek at the
'OnMedia 100' square (in the greens) in this recent 'ADTECHOPOLY' spoof from
Luma:

<http://www.slideshare.net/tkawaja/adtechopoly-7968692>

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alanfalcon
Busy or not, what kind of credibility do you have coming out with this a month
later? And then to use the tone used in the article?

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jedc
This is fairly shocking. First, for it to happen at all. And second, that it
took this long to talk about it. Looks like everyone involved has some
explaining to do in order to regain credibility...

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jamesshamenski
Can someone explain how Wonga took the concept of pay day loans (which has a
negative connotation in America) and spun so much posititivity out of their
brand? I like how they make it easy to pay bills directly but there is
something i'm missing here.

~~~
jasonkester
Is there any positivity in that brand?

I see their scammy looking ads from time to time and mentally group them with
those auction sites claiming you can win an iPad for $4.38.

This is the first I've heard that they are an actual company.

~~~
JacobAldridge
My beautiful wife and I were walking past Regents Park (in central London)
just before Christmas last year, admiring the houses and wondering aloud what
an obscene amount of money it would cost to live or base your office out of
any of them. Wonga had two.

It was the first we'd heard of them (having been in London only a month or
so), but they got a lot of publicity on the Tube in the lead up to New Year's
Eve (where they sponsored free public transport for the evening). But even
discussions of that promotion were all tinged with 'how could Transport for
London / the Mayor's office associate themselves with a company like this?'.

 _"Is there any positivity in that brand?"_

None that I've seen. And when they're charging interest rates like they do to
afford offices like they do, I doubt any will be forthcoming in the near
future.

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JacobAldridge
For what it's worth, I was recently involved as a judge [1] for a competition
the _Telegraph_ ran searching for "Britain's Fittest Director" [2]

At no point did I or any of my team get any indication of pressure, preference
or favour from the Telegraph. I was a few steps removed from them, but the
impression I got was that they had involved a group of expert judges and were
planning to back their judgement, and that that's what they did.

Perhaps this competition wasn't as high profile, or the finalists [3] not as
controversial. I obviously can't speak about the Startup100 awards or the
_Telegraph_ in general, only share that my experience was different.

[1] My judging was limited to one of the intermediate rounds. They used a pool
of similarly trained business experts from Shirlaws to meet with and assess
the business fitness of the top contenders. I ran several interviews, and gave
my score and some general feedback to the judging coordinator.

[2]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/8308565/Comp...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/8308565/Competition-
Britains-Fittest-Director.html)

[3]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/8459412/Brit...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/8459412/Britains-
Fittest-Director-2011-the-finalists.html)

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proexploit
"The voting process was overseen by Wrong Agency Ltd" - An apt name for the
situation?

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joeconway
As much as I really can't stand Wonga for its concept and largely its
advertising; this is pretty shocking. I would imagine that if I were a
newspaper editor I would rather been seen to promote a company that wasn't
necessarily in line with the attitude of the paper than to be known for
falsifying results in a competition.

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alain94040
So who swaped the envelope?

