Designing a welcome that unites: Why brand Ghana must lead our national story

By Senyo Amponsah, PhD

A narrow street around the Ho-Ahoe roundabout was alive the day my aunt invited a popular borborbor group for her birthday party. Neighbours stopped, feet shuffled, an impromptu circle formed; by the time the percussions hit, strangers were clapping in time followed with beautifully synchronised dance steps. That moment where music turns strangers into an audience, and an audience into a momentary family, is what a nation’s welcome should feel like. Yet a recent row over whether “Akwaaba” was swapped for “Oobakɛ” at national gateways showed how easily that choreography can fall apart when there is no agreed score.

Let me explain. You see, that instant, when song and step make strangers move as one, is the emotional standard a national welcome should meet: it must do more than inform; it must make people feel they belong, with one united voice. Think of the nation’s brand as that borborbor band: the percussions, rattles, trumpet and voices each matter, but without a bandleader and a shared arrangement, the music dissolves into confusion. In branding terms, that arrangement is a clear brand architecture. It is the rulebook for which voices lead when, how local and national signals relate, and how inclusion is made routine rather than accidental; so every gateway into Ghana can reproduce that same warm, unmistakable welcome.

This truth came into sharp relief during the recent debate over whether “Akwaaba” had been replaced with “Oobakɛ” on public signage, particularly at the refurbished Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park. Though the Ghana Tourism Authority denied any official change and clarified that the supposed replacements were neither sanctioned nor installed under its supervision, the rumour was enough to ignite anxieties. Was one culture being erased? Was another being imposed? Should the word of welcome at Ghana’s symbolic gateways reflect the capital’s indigenous heritage, or the nation’s broader identity?

This was not simply a squabble over letters on a wall. It was the symptom of a deeper structural problem: the absence of a national brand architecture. Without a coordinated system to align city, regional and national signals, confusion thrives and even misinformation gains credibility. A coherent brand framework would not only have prevented the rumour from seeming plausible; it would also have turned the moment into an opportunity to showcase inclusion.

Why models matter

Branding scholarship has long offered guidance for such dilemmas. Two models are especially useful here.

Hankinson’s Relational Network Model reminds us that a place brand is co-created by multiple stakeholders: citizens, visitors, investors, traditional authorities, institutions, and diaspora communities. If stakeholders feel excluded, legitimacy collapses, regardless of what officials declare.

Herstein’s Country–City–Region Branding Matrix, on the other hand, emphasises the need for vertical alignment. National, city, and regional brands are interdependent. It suggests a capital city’s identity, for example, must be acknowledged, but it should not override the clarity and consistency required at the national level. Misalignment at any layer produces confusion and contestation.

These models are far from abstract; they have been translated into practical policy in countries and cities that, like Ghana, manage multiple languages and layered identities. In Switzerland, for example, public signage and official communications routinely accommodate German, French, Italian and Romansh: national-level messages appear in several tongues, cantons foreground their local language, and tourist services add English where needed—making it an ordered, tiered approach rather than ad hoc inclusion. In Spain’s Valencia region, a legal framework obliges public signs and billboards to give prominence to Valencian alongside Spanish (and English in visitor areas), so local identity is visible but expressed within a consistent rulebook. Canada offers complementary lessons: Toronto’s municipal “TO” brand was developed through broad stakeholder engagement and shows how a city identity can sit comfortably beside a national story, while Destination Canada’s campaigns demonstrate how strong regional distinctiveness can actually enrich a coherent national brand.

Taken together, these cases make the point plain: coherence and inclusion do not happen by accident; they are the products of institutional design and sustained stakeholder co-creation — exactly the work Ghana now needs.

These models help us see why the brouhaha escalated. Without relationship quality, as Hankinson emphasises, groups were quick to interpret the supposed change as erasure. Without vertical alignment, as Herstein shows, the tension between Accra’s Ga heritage and Ghana’s wider cultural identity became a flashpoint. The result was not just noise on social media but a public debate that reached into the heart of Ghana’s symbolic identity.

What best practice suggests for Ghana

What would best practice have suggested in this case? Based on the models earlier discussed, a layered gateway protocol, established in advance, would have resolved the matter before it began. Gateways such as airports, national monuments, and major stations should convey both national unity and local authenticity. The most effective system would be structured in tiers:

Tier 1: A national constant recognisable at home and abroad.
Tier 2: A local contextual greeting reflecting the host city or region.
Tier   3:  A rotational element that periodically showcases the country’s broader linguistic diversity.

In such a structure, no group is erased, and none is arbitrarily elevated.

Evidence from international practice supports this approach. At Detroit Metropolitan Airport in the United States, a multilingual signage programme introduced English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese messages with clear visual hierarchy. The result was improved navigation and a stronger sense of inclusiveness among travellers. Diversity and coherence, in other words, are not mutually exclusive. They are the outcomes of design discipline.

In Ghana’s case, the science would suggest the national constant should remain “Akwaaba.” The word carries decades of recognition equity in tourism, diaspora relations, and international perception. It is one of Ghana’s most widely known words abroad, and it symbolises the warmth and hospitality for which the country is famous. However, this legitimacy must be earned. Retaining “Akwaaba” at the national tier should not be a unilateral technocratic decision. It should be ratified through structured dialogue with traditional leaders, language authorities, residents, tourism operators, creatives, and diaspora voices. Only co-creation can transform what might feel imposed into what feels shared.

The institutional solution: Brand Ghana Office

This moment therefore presents not just a crisis but an opportunity. Ghana has long recognised the importance of coordinated branding. The Brand Ghana Office was first launched in 2009 with the aim of projecting a unified identity for trade, tourism, and diplomacy. Yet the office soon became underfunded and largely dormant, a casualty of institutional fragmentation and shifting political priorities.

Recent discussions of its revival, however, offer a chance to correct course. If properly empowered, Brand Ghana could serve as the conductor of the ‘national borborbor group’, ensuring that every instrument plays in harmony rather than discord. To succeed, the office must be given both authority and clarity of mandate. It should publish a national brand architecture playbook, codifying how greetings and other identity markers appear at gateways. It should convene multi-stakeholder councils representing traditional authorities, language experts, the creative industries, private-sector partners, and diaspora voices to ratify and update the country’s core brand assets. It should also establish enforceable design standards for hierarchy, typography, and legibility, so that multilingual signage is orderly rather than chaotic. And it should integrate branding into urban development and tourism policy, so that infrastructure, events, and campaigns all reinforce the same narrative.

Reviving Brand Ghana is not about producing another slogan or logo. It is about building the institutional framework that prevents cultural misunderstandings from spiralling into national controversies. It is about ensuring that Ghana speaks with one voice even as it celebrates many tongues. It is about giving form to what Hankinson calls stakeholder legitimacy and what Herstein calls vertical alignment.

A respectful close

In the end, this is not a matter of choosing between “Akwaaba” and “Oobakɛ.” It is about designing a system where both, and indeed all Ghana’s greetings, can shine in harmony. Just as a highlife band produces beauty only when the instruments follow a shared score, Ghana’s diverse voices can only welcome the world effectively when guided by a national brand architecture.

By reviving Brand Ghana and giving it the authority to orchestrate, the country can ensure that every sign, every slogan and every gateway says the same thing in many languages: You are welcome. This is Ghana.