The explosive leak on Monday that revealed how a number of high profile business people hide their money in offshore companies has seen the law firm embroiled in the scandal become one of the most consumed companies online over the past two days.
The scandal has been dubbed the ‘Panama Papers’ and has wide ranging implications for those involved. The Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson has already resigned.
Since the revelations, the law firm involved where the leaked documents came from, Mossack Fonesca, has become one of many high profile companies in the spotlight online.
Data from brand intelligence company Amobee suggests the increase in consumption of the company online – meaning the number of times the company has been seen across web, social, video and image – has increased to 150 per cent more than Microsoft, Google, Woolworths and Telstra combined in the past two days.
The data from Amobee is from the 3rd and 4th of April. The story broke at 3am Sydney time on Monday 4 April.
“At a global level, social aided this huge jump in consumption and within the first half an hour of news breaking,” said Amobee.
“Mossack Fonseca produced a 6,943 per cent increase in tweets related to the law firm before the name ‘Panama Papers’ was coined.”
It’s not yet reached the heights of the FIFA scandal in May 2015, said Amobee, but has completely overtaken tennis champ Maria Sharapova’s recent drug admissions.
“Although the Panama Papers leaks have rocked news outlets across the world, little negative sentiment has been recorded with only 2 per cent more negative sentiment than positive sentiment between the 3rd & 4th April,” added the brand intelligence company.
“Putting this into perspective the FIFA scandal drove 45 per cent more negative than positive sentiment at its peak on the 27th May and Sharapova drugs scandal 57 per cent more negative than positive web sentiment on the 8th March.”
Amobee suggested this means Australians are holding their judgement for now, however noted this could soon change if further information or Aussie companies were revealed to be involved.
