Students, staff, alumni and faculty showcase their talents and collaborate on Columbia’s new radio ad.

For the new advertising campaign, Columbia didn’t have to look far for talent. The radio ad involved more than 24 members of staff, faculty, students and alumni—making for a truly collaborative effort. 

Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications Deb Maue was thrilled to be able to showcase Columbia’s deep talent pool. “I don’t know of another college that could have produced a complete campaign like this using internal talent. In the beginning stages of planning the advertising campaign…we realized that we had all of the talent right here to do everything for the radio and video spots.” 

Kim Livingstone ’92, who has been on Columbia’s staff for more than 10 years, served as project manager and was instrumental in including as much Columbia talent in the projects as possible. Her son, Photography sophomore Daniel Livingstone, documented the behind-the-scenes photography seen here. Daniel was among six current students who participated in the production.  

“I found that collaborating with experienced professionals and learning from them was most meaningful,” says Audio Arts and Acoustics student Nick Pansino. Music sophomore Van Isaacson valued the “little glimpses into the ‘real’ world.” Isaacson said for his violin playing to “make it to the ears of a high school student…is extremely important to me.”

Audio Arts and Acoustics part-time faculty member Michael Coyle believes that this project “was a reminder that the other faculty I see day-to-day in the halls of the school are also incredible creatives in their fields. Writers, composers, musicians, videographers and audio mixers all came together to collaborate on a project for the school where we all work. It was a great reminder of the school’s larger community of professionals.”

Beginning on September 19, the 30-second spot can be heard on Pandora and Spotify, as well as a 60-second spot on local terrestrial stations WTMX 101.9 FM and WBBM 105.9 FM. The voice you hear in the radio spots is Joan Hammel ’86.

“When I was approached to work on it, I loved their vision of using people from within the Columbia community,” says Hammel, a Radio alum who formerly served on the Board of Trustees. She sums it up best by saying: “Who better than our own to put together the story about us?” 

Listen to the 60-second version here:

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