It sounds too good to be true – free, customizable mac and cheese bowls, straight from a Stouffer’s food truck.
On Nov. 17, Marin Seifert, a High Point University alumna of 2013, will make that custom mac and cheese dream come to fruition on the HPU campus.
Seifert is an account coordinator for Ketchum, a global public relations firm in Chicago, Illinois. Ketchum’s client list includes Nestlé, Wendy’s, IKEA, Kimberly-Clark, GNC, Welch’s and more.
At Ketchum, Seifert works in the brand practice through several global consumer packaged goods brands, including Nestlé, the creators of the Stouffer’s brand. As an account coordinator, she has organized a visit from the Stouffer’s food truck to visit HPU this month, as well as other locations throughout the state.
Her day-to-day work consists of managing relationships with media, drafting key message points for interviews, brainstorming creative amplification ideas and managing client relationships.
She says that Phil Watson, instructor of communication at HPU, not only helped shape her understanding of public relations, but also ignited her passion for the field.
“Professor Watson challenged me in ways no other professor did,” Seifert says. “Thanks to him, my passion for PR really began after taking Professor Watson’s class my sophomore year and continued all throughout my time at HPU and beyond.”
While she was a communication major at HPU, Seifert created a turn-key strategic communication campaign for the High Point Area Arts Council to increase council event attendance, which was implemented just a few months later. That experience, along with multiple internships at public relations firms, allowed her to get a feel for what it would be like working for a client in the real world – something that Seifert does every day now at Ketchum.
“HPU provides the opportunity for students to succeed through the great faculty and staff,” she says. “Every professor I had at HPU was always willing to go the extra mile to help a student succeed.”