These Five Banks, PR and the Recovery of the Brands

Is this the beginning of the end for the five affected banks presently enmeshed in the quagmire of unethical practices and liquidity crisis? The above seems to be the question agitating the minds of the banking public in the country.

Banking the world over is a business of trust and confidence – trust between the bank and its customers  the current and prospective customers alike.

The Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi A. Sanusi, from all indications looks determined to restore confidence in the system in a way that the soiled leprosy fingers are carefully attended to without sowing panic into the system. While some prejudiced minds have attached some ulterior motives to the on-going cleansing, no one can fault the fact that the industry will be better off with the reforms as the issues of share manipulations, unprofessional banking practice, especially in the granting of some largely unsecured credits will be a thing of the past.

So the busting of the heinous practice by the CBN is meant as an antidote to prevent total loss of confidence in the system by the Nigerian population and other keen watchers of the financial market.

Sure enough, the five banks – Intercontinental, Oceanic, Union,  Afribank and Finbank are brands in their own right with impressive history. But with the breach of public confidence as being alleged by the CBN, is there hope for the brands to recover from this impasse any time soon? Although, the CBN has injected N420 billion in the banks to booster the confidence of the public, it is seen to be a far cry from an estimated N1trillion needed to get these banks back on sound footing. But, apart from the solvency issue, the odd seems to be against these financial brands.

For instance, Sanusi’s cleansing, which was meant to discretely manage the process to minimize its unsavoury effect s on the public and banking image, has generated very unfriendly publicity for the sector and particularly the affected banks. The sector and the drivers have cut the image of inefficient and unprofessional lot.

Again, the behaviour of the officials hacked in the process and the scathing discoveries did little to help matters. For instance, fugitive President of the Chartered Institute of Banking (CIBN) and CEO of Intercontinental Bank is a case in point. How does he prove his innocence and restore confidence in the brand while on flight? Ditto the other CEOs who are presently suffering the disrepute.

Beyond the issue of the CEOs and their respective baggage of battered image, “de-marketing” by competition is working hell against the recovery of the affected banks. It would be recalled that some players had alleged that Intercontinental Bank is suffering its current fate because it reported First Bank to the CBN authorities on some de-marketing moves against it.

George Thorpe, Chairman, IMS Group, a respected voice in the marketing industry, jocularly quipped at a knowledge sharing seminar by the Account Planning Group Nigeria (APGN) in Lagos, asking: “Is there any real marketing taking place in the Nigerian banking sector before you talk of de-marketing?

Whatever that means, the current situation is that the debilitating effect of ‘de-marketing’ is invoked against these ‘unfortunate banks’. Bank marketers from the ‘safe’ banks now deploy de-marketing antics to sway their target to transfer their businesses from the comatose banks to their banks. To some extent, this has been working because the CBN’s position, the allegations, and unbecoming conducts of some of the actors support the claims of the pressurized marketers.  To drive home the effect of this on the brand, a friend and CEO of an advertising agency told me just before this piece that his company has tactically withdrawn the agency’s account with one of its bankers which happen to be among the five.

Does this mean the banks’ PR efforts aimed at restoring customers’ confidence is not yielding desired result? Your guess is as good as mine. One actually wonders what manner of PR is being deployed by the banks. The other day, some banks arranged for some special ‘premium priced’ press releases in some national publications. Are these really worth it?

Once confidence and trust are broken, it becomes very difficult and tasking, it requires creativity and tact. It requires a strategic approach to restore confidence. Running run-of-the-mill press releases under whatever guise stand to be taken with a pinch of salt. The unwritten caveat emptor is figuratively conspicuous all over the “PR” stories.

The challenge is to think about a more strategic approach to restoring the bungled consumers’ confidence. This is my token of advice.

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