By: Messan Mawugbe (PhD)
26th June 2024.
The Context and Brand Reputation Impacts
The central bank of Ghana known as Bank of Ghana (BoG) in a press release dated
the 4th March 2024, suspended the Foreign Exchange Trading Licenses of Guaranty
Trust Bank Limited (GT Bank) and FBN Bank Ghana Limited (FirstBank Ghana) for
one month under section 11 (2) of the Foreign Exchange Act 2006, (Act 723) for
breaching forex regulatory guidelines. Globally, corporate brands are obliged to
follow and adhere to industrial regulatory guidelines for sustainable business
environment and consumer trust. How corporate brands are presented across the
media ecosystems induce a mental-image and a degree of consumer perception
about a brand which subsequently drives business towards a brand.
How the media select and present brand narratives as news stories are not just
news stories but a brandโs story hinging on brand values of image, trust,
reputation, loyalty, consumer behavior and relations towards a brand. Reputation
remains a critical element at the centre of any brandโs story and should form part
of every companyโs integrated corporate strategic communication planning and
campaign metrics.
In addition, brand reputation is an aesthetic value-lenses through which
consumers perceive companies as either positive and trustworthy or less
attractive to be engaged with. A companyโs positive reputation therefore serves
as business driving force with a tendency to increase sales or a down turn in sales.
Similarly, negative banking company news headlines such as Regulatory breaches:
Forex trading licenses of GT Bank, FBN Bank suspended for one month โ BoG
(www.modernghana.com, March 5,2024) does not only impacts negatively on
companyโs reputation but also connotes a dented corporate perception among
consumers and competitors.
Subsequently, lack of positively driven brand reputation could go a long way to
cause reduction in sales as consumer loyalty drops, it pushes investor confidence
to a lowest ebb, it impacts on company-relationsโ harmony among employees
especially when the brand is presented in the media with regulatory ethical
breaches and trust. Banking corporate-brand reputation is an intrinsic
trustworthy-public collateral value, the more it gets chipped off, the more a
company loses its relevance within the competitive landscapes.
In this light of negative news story on brand reputations , University of
Pennsylvania study concluded that โnegative information hurts, negative reviews,
messages, or rumors hurt product evaluations and reduce purchase likelihood and
salesโ (Kate Coleman: Status Labs) just as in a collaborated assertion of 2019
study revealed โthe effect of negative news on reputation is three times larger
than the effect of positive newsโ (Kate Coleman: Status Labs) for โbusiness with
just one negative article risk losing up to 22% of prospective customersโ (Kate
Coleman: Status Labs).
It is against the backdrop of the importance of companyโs reputational and trust
attributes and related impacts on corporate success is this article weaved around
the mediaโs coverage of negative brand news story:
Media coverage and reputational dent repairs
Globally, there is an assumption that negative news story lights up quickly
across media platforms. The media might not necessary be interested in negative
news values but as a publicโs ombudsman and custodian of publicโs moral
principles and values attaches higher news attention to negative brand story
relating to trust, reputational and regulatory breaches. In an era of world corporate
and multicultural connectivity, negative news stories have higher online
shareability being news portals which compounds the negative dents on a brandโs
reputation. An analysis of the coverage of the GT Bank Ghana and FirstBank
Ghana negative stories confirms media appetite for negative news than positive
news stories to an extent: During the month of March, FirstBank Ghana recorded
a remarkable corporate growth story, engaged in youth development social
responsibility activity and observance of the international womenโs day whilst GT
Bank Ghana also voted GHC5 million for social investments and sustainable CSR
initiative none of these positive news beats attracted highest media attention.
The basis of this data is the application of narrative content analysis of 42 online
media in March, 2024 which reported on the FirstBank Ghana and GT Bank Ghana
forex licenses suspension with the purpose of benchmarking mediaโs coverage of
positive and negative stories about the two banking brands Inter-coder validity of
the data is 85%. The Chart below revealed the mediaโs taste for negative news
story as over 82% of the media analyzed gave extensive coverage to the negative
corporate story but as compared to only 19% of media given attention to positive
news stories generated by the FirstBank Ghana and GT Bank Ghana during the
month the negative news story broke.
The Media however Ignored FirstBank Ghana and GT Bank Ghanaโs positive stories
in March but gave the negative Forex License issues the highest attention: Does it
mean the media has high appetite for negative news stories?
As pointed out, negative brand stories have a tendency of affecting a companyโs
overall success in a competitive business environment. In managing a dent
inflicted on a companyโs reputation, a concerted consideration should be attached
to evolving positive narratives to offset the negative brand tones by being ethically
transparent, responsible, admittance of wrong-doing and render apology, and
offer assurance to consumers and compliance agencies. Strategic corporate
communication departments should employ consistent media monitoring for their
brand sentiments profiling, and social media listening in order to be ahead of their
brand narratives. Also, communication executives need a new orientation about
brand-image metrics, and corporate-story positioning for positive news story
doesnโt guarantee an extensive media coverage, but depends on strategic
deployment of customized media relations effort for respective story. In all these,
the basic approach towards reputational management is finding answers to the
following corporate media intelligence โ Is your positive brand story getting the
needed media attention, what is the degree of your social media sentiment,
share, reach and the aggregate score of your brand reputation among your
competitors? Strategic answers to this rhetoric prevent negative brand story from
impacting negatively on your companyโs reputation. It is highly recommended that
companies should turn every single positive corporate initiative into an earn
media strategy to leverage on unexpected negative brand sentiments.
The Author: Messan Mawugbe (PhD)
Institute of Brands Narrative Analysis (IBNA)
Email: ibna@ibnareports.org
mawugbe@ibnareports.org