CEO’s identity is intrinsically linked to the organic identity and culture of an organisation. As such, CEOs acts as the central nerves and guardians of the values, purpose and strategies of an organisation.
Furthermore, CEOs sets brands transformations in the context of strategy and business model for an overall brand impact in a competitive business market. Another significance of a CEO’s identity is how it impacts on the corporate identity as a whole. The fact is corporate identities are supposed to remain in a stable balance than to be seen as static.
CEO’s role is to a larger extent, ensuring that each attribute of a CEO identity drives the static state of a brand and the corporate into a competitive edge of uttermost stability. Banking sector thrives on a strong consumer trust. Subsequently, Banking CEOs identity has the tendency of influencing banking sector consumer trust.
It is therefore imperative for Banking sector communication departments to be concerned with how their CEO-identity is exposed through the media to consumers and prospective customers and investor relations.
It is against the backdrop of the impact and importance of banking CEOs’ visibility in consumer relations, investor relations and on the organisation that the Institute of Brands Narratives Analysis (IBNA), a strategic media intelligence consulting agency in Accra conducted a study on the media coverage of Ghana Banks’ CEOs.
The study was conducted under IBNA’s CEOs Media Visibility Index Score Card (IBNA-MVISC) in the first and the second quarter of 2021. The study results ranked Ecobank Ghana, the Pan-African Bank CEO, Mr Dan Sackey topping the Top 10 Ghana Banks CEO media visibility ranking for Q1 &Q2, 2021.
The Ghana Banks CEOs Media Visibility Index is a quantitative deconstructive analysis that seeks to evaluate every single news narrative statement associated with a banking CEO within the scope of the selected media platform.
This analysis is performed against IBNA’s tools for measuring CEO attributes by assigning numerical values t to symbols of communications linked to a banking CEO’s brand identity. In addition, the IBNA’s CEO Media Visibility Matrix is designed to establish how news narratives impacts on a CEO’s personality, communication styles, corporate style, corporate philosophy within the industry.
Also, strategic communication rhetoric is measured: What is a CEO’s public projection sentiments associated with a banking brand? How often is a CEO directly quoted in a news narrative? How often is a CEO’s corporate voice paraphrase in a news narrative? How often is a CEO given a vivid quote in news narrative and does CEOs voices linked to the corporate vision and mission? How often is a CEO’s news narrative associated with a brand’s logo or a CEO’s picture? What constitute CEO’s picture themes in terms of color, posture, news angle placement – is it 45 degree or 90 degrees?
Finding answers to this communication rhetoric is critical for the strategic management of CEO’s media visibility. Banking CEO’s media visibility is not about a mechanical presentation across media platforms but a promotional strategy.
IBNA therefore encourages Banks corporate communication departments to adopt CEO-promotion strategy through mechanisms of turning CEO’s activities and stories into brand-life and brand-style news narrative as a way of sustaining brand health. Certainly, there is the challenge of CEO-Media shyness.
Notwithstanding that, CEOs should be well informed about how their voices and articulations contributes to brand health, brand reputation, and subsequently brand-consumer-trust.
Many banking CEOs in Ghana have a catch up to do on their overall media visibility. IBNA’s study on the Ghana Banks CEOs Media Visibility for Q1 and Q2, 2021 revealed the following CEO-brands visibilities:
Among the 23 banking CEOs representing the 23 banks in Ghana, woefully, only 9 (39%) banks’ CEOs gained media visibility for the period of Q1 and Q2, 2021. This is not encouraging for Ghana’s competitive business sector such as banking.
Ecobank Ghana CEO, Dan Sackey pulled 69 (25%) to gain the most visible CEO position.
The 2nd position slot was gained by Victor Yaw Asante of FBNBank with 63 (23%); GCB Bank CEO; Kofi Adomakoh recorded 38 (14%) for the 3rd position. ADB Bank CEO, Dr. John Kofi Mensah who topped the IBNA’s 2020 Annual CEO Media Visibility Index recorded 36 (13%) for a 4th position. I guess ADB Bank is working hard to maintain their enviable 2020 visibility position.
The 5th position through to the 9th position were recorded by the following respectively: STANBIC Bank CEO, Kwamina Asomaning 29 (10%); Olumide Olatunji, the CEO of Access Bank Ghana gained 24 (9%); Abena Osei Poku, the CEO of Absa Ghana also had 8 (3%) scores; Julian Opuni, the CEO of Fidelity Bank had 6 (2%); Mansa Nettey, the CEO of Stanchart Bank scored 2 (1%).
Each of these Banks CEOs has actually what it takes to be media visible and are therefore encourage to inch their visibility strategy up since CEO’s media visibility corresponds to Brand value and Brand visibility.
IBNA’s CEOs Media Visibility Index Score Card (IBNA-MVISC), 2021:
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) a strategic media intelligence consultancy agency: Email- [email protected]
