Ghanaian banks’ media visibility ranking study conducted by the Institute of Brands Narratives Analysis (IBNA), a strategic media intelligence agency in Accra, revealed that GCB bank topped the IBNA’s ‘Ghana Banks’ Media Visibility Index’ (IBNA-MVI) in the first and second quarters of 2021.
GCB Bank was the most visible bank for the period of first quarter (Q1) and second quarter (Q2), 2021. GCB Bank seems to be entrenching its Media Visibility position, as it topped IBNA’s 2020 Annual Banking Media Visibility rankings in Ghana but lost the banking CEOs’ media visibility for 2020 to ADB Bank. For Q1 & Q2 2021 news narratives, GCB recorded a total of 26 (19%); FBN Bank 22 (16%); Ecobank 20 (15%); Stanchart 4%; and FNB (2%).
In terms of corporate news narrative reach – that is, the extent of penetration for a bank’s news stories across the various media platforms – GCB bank also recorded the highest story-reach of 88 (20%); Fidelity 72 (17%); FBNBank 60 (14%); ADB 50 (12%); absa, Access and Ecobank recorded (11%) each while Stanchart recorded (5%) media reach. GCB Bank’s media reach was influenced by these news stories: ‘Be cautious of inherent risks of digital transformation’; ‘GCB holds 27th Annual General Meeting (AGM)’; and ‘GCB grants GH¢156.1m personal loans to over 9,000 customers’.
GCB Bank Tops News Story Reach Ratings: Q1 &Q2, 2021
Ghanaian banking sector players are encouraged to pay attention to their brand’s earned media. This study revealed many banks couldn’t make it to Top 10 positions. Its time banks’ communication departments evolved their corporate activities into news narratives to leverage on corporate visibility and brand reach.
Attention should be paid to corporate media visibility. For it is not just about paid media content for Q1 and Q2, but adopting measurements for each corporate Media Platform Visibility Matrix (MPVM): For instance, what is your bank’s media visibility value in terms of number of stories? How many media platforms covered your brand’s stories? What communication-visibility objective did you set for your brand? In addition, what is the visibility, mentions, and reach levels of your corporate activities in the first and second quarter of 2021? Finally, and strategically, communication departments shouldn’t just be apologetic for failing to gain a single visibility in Q1 and Q2, 2021. Simply, this strategic corporate communication failure is unpardonable!
The Ghana Banks’ Media Visibility Index is a consistent quarterly scientific model designed to track and measure banking corporates’ media coverage and the extent of its visibility. IBNA takes key interest in corporate visibility matrices – such as the corporate news story strength, CEO’s visibility, news story reach, banking brands media narratives, attributes and many more. At IBNA, we strongly support the effective relation between corporate visibility and consumer relations. IBNA encourages banking strategic communication departments to step up media intelligence efforts in this era of fleeting content.
A critical analysis of Ghana’s banking corporates suggests many strategic communications departments are underperforming. For instance, none of the banks could generate even 30 news stories for Q1 to Q2, 2021. A total of 94 banking news stories were recorded in Q1, but this jumped to 146 in Q2. All the same, dynamism within the banking sector is yet to be fully experienced in unpaid media content – such as news.
The writer is a lecturer at the Communications Studies Department of the University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA) and Founder of the Institute of Brands Narrative Analysis (IBNA): Email- [email protected]
