Emirates NBD tops the list of the most talked about financial institute in the UAE dailies for the period Feb 23-Mar 22, 2010, but what does it really mean? When we look at the prominence of those mentions (prominence index), we see a different story:

• 0.354: Emirates NBD
• 0.408: National Bank of Abu Dhabi
• 0.136: HSBC
• 0.281: Standard Chartered

From this, we can see that mentions of NBAD are more prominent but their media exposure is still significantly lower than that of Emirates NBD's. What this tells us is that whenever you see NBAD news, they are most likely originating from NBAD's PR people, which is in sharp contrast with that of HSBC or Standard Chartered.

Data supplied is a summary of the period 23 Feb to 22 Mar 2010. Figures include positive, neutral and negative mentions in the UAE Arabic and English morning daily newspapers. Companies are counted only once if its name is used on more than one occasion in a single article. Indices and stock prices are not counted. The margin of error is +/-5%. Impressions are based on the number of mentions multiplied by the claimed circulation.

It is also interesting that winning awards topped the topics covered on Emirates NBD and NBAD. In fact, they both seem to have won 'Best Local Bank' awards in the UAE. Emirates NBD Private Banking won the 2010 Euromoney Private Banking Survey, whereas NBAD won the 'Best Local Bank' award from emeafinance magazine. You can see how it's easy to confuse the Emirates NBD bank and the Emirates NBD Private Banking.. Judging from the coverage received, Emirates NBD's PR activities were substantially more successful in leveraging this in PR coverage, compared with NBAD.

When it comes to retail banking, the share of ink matters. Dare we suggest that NBAD's PR people pick up the slack if they were to compete with Emirates NBD.