Brands over time

The Co-operative Bank
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

40 of The Co-operative Bank's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2015 to 2020, measured sentence by sentence, 28 of them recovered from the Internet Archive. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 17 other banks, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
40
Years covered
2015–20
Archived before ChatGPT
28
Blog · press
4 · 36

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

The Co-operative Bank's homepage from 2000 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026co-operativebank.co.uk30 Jun 2026
The Co-operative Bank homepage, 30 Jun 2026

Screenshot of The Co-operative Bank’s homepage (co-operativebank.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 30 Jun 2026. © The Co-operative Bank or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by The Co-operative Bank.

Homepage

2026

“Who you bank with matters. So, why bank with us?”

Page title

Personal banking | Online banking | The Co-operative Bank

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2014Current Account Plus
  2. 2016Balance Transfer Credit Card
  3. 2018Start planning for your future today.
  4. 2021Join the bank that puts its customers first
  5. 2023Join the bank you can hold to account
  6. 2025Who you bank with matters. So, why bank with us?

22 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
8
16
24
Banks avg 14.4
17.7
18.3
19.8
14.3
18.1
15.2
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
20152 pp
20166 pp
20173 pp
20186 pp
20196 pp
20207 pp
2021no pages
2022no pages
2023no pages
2024no pages
2025no pages
2026no pages
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
201517.72
201618.36
201719.83
201814.36
201918.16
202015.27

Years with pages: 2015 (2), 2016 (6), 2017 (3), 2018 (6), 2019 (6), 2020 (7). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Against its sector

The Co-operative Bank among banks

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. Questions

    27% less than its sector

    2.2 against a sector average of 3.0; 5th lowest of 16.

  2. Em dashes

    25% less than its sector

    1.73 against a sector average of 2.30; 4th lowest of 16.

  3. Contractions

    23% less than its sector

    12.2 against a sector average of 15.8; 5th lowest of 16.

Sentence length3rd highest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 15.8
11.818.6
Contractions5th lowest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 12.2
9.428.7
"You"Mid-table, 10th of 16
The Co-operative Bank 42%
18%76%
"We"Mid-table, 7th of 16
The Co-operative Bank 53%
19%77%
Questions5th lowest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 2.2
0.65.2
Long wordsMid-table, 7th of 16
The Co-operative Bank 27%
20%30%
Em dashes4th lowest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 1.73
1.263.96
AI-associated words4th lowest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 0.53
0.342.27
Exclamations4th lowest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 0.05
0.023.75
Page length3rd lowest of 16
The Co-operative Bank 721
5261,935

Pages measured: Metro Bank 145 · TSB 170 · Virgin Money 73 · The Co-operative Bank 40 · Chase UK 3 · Zopa 208 · Atom bank 306 · Kroo 67 · Skipton Building Society 107 · Coventry Building Society 2 · Lloyds Bank 210 · Nationwide 91 · Monzo 219 · Barclays 213 · NatWest 292 · Starling Bank 298 · Santander 114 · HSBC 111. Measures and method: SGR-010; the brand list and sectors come from SGR-009.

04 · Vocabulary

Words The Co-operative Bank uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

chat72.4 vs 2.7
co-operative134.6 vs 0.1
ethical35.6 vs 0.4
hive35.0 vs 0.1
cent39.2 vs 2.1
ethics17.5 vs 0.1
promotional17.5 vs 0.2
representative25.3 vs 1.0
co-op18.7 vs 0.1
advisor24.1 vs 0.9
refuge15.7 vs 0.0
visit63.4 vs 7.9
The Co-operative BankSector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 40 pages. Product names and page furniture filtered automatically; list not yet reviewed.

05 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

2016 · PressArchived copy
“The Co-operative Bank is the only high street bank with a customer-led ethical policy which gives customers a say in how their money is used. Launched in 1992, the Policy has been updated on five occasions, with new commitments added in January 2015 to cover how the Bank operates its business, products and services, workplace and culture, relationships with suppliers and other stakeholders and campaigning.”
The Co-operative Bank responds to the CMA enquiry into the retail banking sector
2018 · PressArchived copy
“The Hive offers guidance, and business support to local co-operatives. This is how a bakery rose to the challenge, and proved that the co-operative way works.”
Fresh thinking from The Hive
2020 · Press
“Here at The Bank, we have a colleague inclusion network to champion equality, fairness and support for our LGBT colleagues, called Proud Together. Anyone can join Proud Together, you don’t have to be LGBT, just supportive of the work the network does and stands for.”
LGBT History Month 2020
2020 · PressArchived copy
“Whether it’s buying your first house or switching your mortgage, we can help you understand the different types of mortgages so you can decide which one works best for you.”
What is a tracker mortgage and fixed rate mortgage
202321 Apr · Press
“We’re always looking at ways we can help our customers whilst banking on the go with the ethical bank of 150 years. That’s why back in November 2022 we released our carefully redesigned mobile app making it quicker and simpler to use.”
We've Made Our Mobile Banking App Even Better

06 · Every page

All 44 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 40 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (4 mostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

20207 pages
20196 pages
20186 pages
20173 pages
20166 pages
20152 pages
In the overall numbers, no year10 pages
  • Why Money Mules Need Your Account23 Jun 2023 · blog · 729 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • We've Made Our Mobile Banking App Even Better21 Apr 2023 · press · 563 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • Mobile App Update3 Apr 2023 · press · 700 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • What is social engineering?1 Apr 2023 · blog · 823 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • Supporting the DEC Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal15 Feb 2023 · press · 291 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • Supporting Co-operative Local Businesses5 Nov 2020 · press · 577 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • Supporting human rights and equality5 Jun 2020 · press · 260 wordsDate only from the page text, not metadata, URL or archive capture: in the overall numbers, not placed in a year
  • Stock Exchange Announcementsundated · announcement · 1,505 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
  • Fraud and Securityundated · blog · 681 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
  • Lifetime Mortgageundated · blog · 656 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
Not measured4 pages

07 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

The Co-operative Bank's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.