ISC students win national Radio Mercury award with extra credit assignment

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 10, 2026) — Most college students reach for extra credit opportunities in a hasty effort to recover from low test scores or pad a final grade.

Seldom do students complete these assignments as a creative exercise, and it’s even rarer for a national award to follow. But for Ciah Marks and Serena Florell, two integrated strategic communication students in the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky, that’s exactly what happened.

This summer, Marks and Florell won the Radio Mercury Award for Student-Produced Script, an honor that recognizes the development of effective and creative radio commercials, for their “Love Radio” commercial script. They wrote the script after Elizabeth Spencer, Ph.D., an associate professor in integrated strategic communication, offered her students extra credit to pen an original radio advertisement and submit it to Radio Mercury judges.

Marks and Florell would have passed Spencer’s class just fine without completing the extra credit, but the prompt offered a unique challenge for the two students and roommates, who enjoy any moment they can flex their creativity.

“I almost always take advantage of opportunities like this,” Marks said. “Since Serena and I already collaborate well, it made sense to tackle it together. We work well as a team because we can bounce ideas off each other, build on one another’s creativity and genuinely have fun during the process.”

That checks out when you consider the pair has known each other for roughly 15 years.

The Richmond, Kentucky, natives met at Model Laboratory School in kindergarten, and “our longtime friendship has built a strong foundation of trust and humor, which are key aspects to being creative partners,” Florell said.

So, when Marks and Florell sat down to brainstorm before the assignment was due, the ideas started flowing — all of which were completely random, Florell said. They landed on “Love Radio,” a play on the popular matchmaking reality series “Love Island,” in addition to a second submitted script. They wrote both in one night.

“We felt the show’s themes and style would be instantly recognizable to listeners,” Marks said. “We thought mimicking the show’s signature voiceover and incorporating some of its familiar phrases in the radio spot would make it especially attention-grabbing.”

Marks and Florell submitted their scripts in early April, and a month later, the pair received emails congratulating them that “Love Radio” was a Radio Mercury Awards finalist and inviting them to the awards ceremony in New York City.

Florell, who was already in New York for an internship, attended the ceremony, and Marks watched the livestream gleefully from home while cooking dinner.

Clips of Florell networking with radio and advertising professionals at the ceremony flashed on Marks’ screen, and soon enough, winners were announced.

“When they announced the student script winners first, I was completely locked in,” Marks said. “Then I saw ‘University of Kentucky’ appear on my screen. That’s when I started to freak out. A few seconds later, they showed our script and revealed we won. I was shocked.”

Florell couldn’t stop smiling after she accepted the award and said the honor has inspired her to accept even more changes and opportunities as they come.

“Originally, Ciah and I thought nothing of the script we wrote and figured it would get lost in a void of submissions,” Florell said. “To get recognized at this level, so early in our careers, is overall inspiring and motivating.”

Not only was Marks excited to add the honor to her resume, but “it gave me confidence in my creative abilities and showed me that the ideas we develop in the classroom can have real industry recognition,” she said.

Spencer commended Marks and Florell for their entering the competition and said attending award shows like the Radio Mercury ceremony present opportunities for creative portfolio reviews and advice from professional mentors.

“The captive audience of top creative professionals seeing their work recognized is such an incredible way to plant a seed for job and internship searches,” Spencer said.

This month, the pair entered their senior year hot off their Radio Mercury award and summer internships — Florell at Burlington and Marks in brand and design at Lexington construction firm Gray, where they both applied what they have learned at UK, working with vendors and tackling project requests respectively.

“The skills ISC has taught me will take me far, and I feel like I could enter any industry with this degree and bring in a diverse set of skills that might be applicable to roles outside of advertising,” Florell said.