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By Alexa Cimino, journalism student

What’s cooler than getting a good grade on an assignment?

For Nicole Cattin (StratComm’20), it was a paid internship her senior year and the opportunity to see her work featured in stores.

Last fall, Cattin and other strategic communications students pitched marketing concepts to representatives from the local cooler company RovR as part of a competition in their capstone level Strategic Communications Campaigns class.

The experience taught Cattin, who served as the creative director for her student-run advertising agency, an important lesson: Sometimes the real rewards of hard work are not obvious at first.

“When we didn’t win after the pitch we were all kind of disappointed,” she says.

After the class, Cattin and her team found out the professor sent their pitch books to the advertising agency representing RovR.

“It almost felt as if we had won in that moment,” says Cattin, who was then given the opportunity to intern with the company.

As a marketing intern, Cattin designed a foldable hang tag for RovR’s newest cooler model––the KeepR––which outdoor retailer REI started stocking in the spring.

“It was so fun to be a part of the design process,” she says.

After Cattin graduated in May, RovR hired her as a full-time customer experience coordinator.

“If you have the research behind your ideas to back them up, and you believe in them, I think that turns the tables so other people will believe in them and see how innovative and creative they are,” she says.

Pictured:��The soft-shelled cooler comes with an ice bucket at the center so items stay cold in the surrounding compartments without being mixed with the ice.