the Pebble Spring 2017

“MPH is a thoughtful, organic place
headed into a new future and full of nuanced
teaching and insightful students,” she said.
Red, they concluded, wasn’t the best color
to reflect this, as it can be perceived as uninviting,
overly traditional and shrill.
“MPH’s athletic colors are vibrant and
strong—but that strength and saturation of
the red makes it a bit hard to work with in
brochures, advertising, and posters,” Albetta
said. “And with that red, we were limited in
finding companion accent colors we could
introduce.”
It was important to brand MPH as a
modern and thriving school to improve the
school’s credibility in the eyes of the Syracuse
community, Neuner said. MPH needed to
reinvent its image without reinventing itself.
“It wasn’t our programs, it wasn’t our
teachers, it wasn’t our students,” she said. “It
was our reputation that was on the line.”
That being said, Dunaway and the administration
wanted to ensure that the campaign
would depict MPH authentically.
“You can advertise something and make
it sound really good, even if it’s not,” Dunaway
said. “There are lots of things that have
great advertisements but when you buy them,
they’re not very good. And we didn’t want
that.”
While the logo and colors underwent
only about 10 modifications, coming to the
final draft for the
written component
of the marketing
campaign—one that
would perfectly encapsulate
the essence
of MPH—was a
much more meticulous
process. But
the administrative
team ultimately felt
that each and every
revision was necessary
in order to better
represent MPH.
Some
Unintended
Results
Kristin Bernazzani and Erica Stark, MPH employees, showing their school
spirit on a Friday “Spirit Day.”
Stegeman
maintains
that the new
colors and logo are
in the best interest
of the school, as
they help marry the
external and internal
community’s views of
MPH: in other words,
the external community
will see all
of the great aspects
that current MPH
community members
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