In Accra, local radio stations blare from every tro tro, taxi and chop bar on the street. Especially when it comes to news and political debate, FM radio still occupies an enormous part of Ghana’s media landscape, so the Media in Ghana 2016 students were eager to work with Radio Univers, one of the oldest independent stations in the country. Staffed entirely by volunteer University of Ghana journalism students, the station has played an important role in promoting democratic ideals and practices over the past twenty years. Radio Univers operates with a mission of cultivating a more informed public and an appreciation for events, ideas and cultures.

While Radio Univers is an established entity on the local radio dial, there is a need to clearly brand the station as the radio marketplace becomes more and more crowded. This is particularly important as digital has transformed the music listening landscape and Radio Univers seeks to expand its reach online. Thanks to diverse skillsets from the advertising, journalism and PR majors on our team, we were able to take on a broad branding consultation project for Radio Univers. The 15 of us formed small teams that tackled logo redesign, social media branding and promotion, producing promotional videos, staff headshots, a sample press release, and providing guidelines for their social media and web presence going into the future. Our partnership was made possible with the help of station manager, Dr. Abubakari Sidick Ahmed at the University of Ghana, and our intrepid program director, Dr. Leslie Steeves. The project was creatively spearheaded by Dr. Chris Chavez.

Although they were all busy with full-time internships at other media organizations around the city, I was proud to see our team carve out time in their evenings and weekends to produce some top quality work for the station. Several students contributed to multiple parts of the total project. Because Radio Univers is a nonprofit station run by student volunteers, they don’t have the resources for branding and promotion that their competitors do. With an intense election season coming up and competition for listeners getting tougher all the time, Dr. Sidick and the RU staff were clearly grateful and excited about all the branding assets and promotional guidance that our team was able to offer.

Credits:

Radio Univers Station Manager: Dr. Abubakari Sidick Ahmed, Department of Communication Studies, University of Ghana
UO Faculty Advisors:  Dr. Leslie Steeves and Dr. Chris Chavez
Strategy Team: Keya Saxena and Zach Putnam
Design Team: Key Higdon, Esther Knox, Emily LeClerc, Caitlin Crosby
Photo and Video Team: Key Higdon, Timothy Farah, Andie Tenoso, Emily LeClerc, Derek Maiolo, Emma Scherzer, Esther Knox
Writing team: Rachel Benner, Emma Henderson, Zach Cross
Public Relations and Brand Consultation Team: Adam Mead, Ben Neal,  Emma Scherzer
Program Partner: Dr. Michael Williams, Aya Centre
Media in Ghana blog editor: Mary Popish