A media visibility ranking study of Ghanaian Banks conducted by the Institute of Brands Narratives Analysis (IBNA), a strategic media intelligence agency in Accra, reveals that GCB bank is the most visible bank in Ghana in the first and second quarters of the year. The report lauds GCB bank for the gains made in its media visibility since last year.

“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 toped IBNA’s 2020 Annual Banking Media Visibility ranking in Ghana but lost the banking CEO’s media visibility for 2020 to ADB bank. For Q1&Q2 2021 news narratives, GCB recorded a total of 26 (19%), FBNBANK 22 (16%), Ecobank 20 (15%), STANCHART 4%, FNB (2%)”.

Meanwhile, in terms of corporate news narrative reach, that is the extent of the penetration of a bank’s news story across the various media platforms, GCB bank also recorded the highest story reach of 88 (20%). This compares with FIDELITY (17%), FBNBANK (14%), and ADB (12%). Also, ABSA, ACCESS and Ecobank recorded (11%) each whilst STANCHART recorded (5%) media reach.

Major news stories of GCB bank

According to the report, 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 GHC156.1M personal loans to over 9000 customers”.

Meanwhile, the report encourages Ghanaian banks to pay attention to their media visibility. Also, the study recommends that banks’ communication departments should evolve their corporate activities into news narrative to improve their 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 of the 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 story? 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?”.

Underperforming strategic communications departments

Furthermore, the report indicates that a critical analysis of Ghanaian banks continues to suggest that many strategic communications departments are underperforming. The IBNA bemoaned the fact that none of the banks could generate even 30 news stories for Q1 to Q2, 2021. According to the IBNA, a total of 94 banking news stories were recorded in Q1 but rose significantly to 146 in Q2.

“All the same, the dynamism within the banking sector is yet to be fully experienced in unpaid media content such as news”.

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. The IBNA indicated that it 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”.