Kay Rolland speaks about advertisement to students.

By Donnie Moreland

Edited by Richelle McIntyre 

On March 26, 2014, Kay Rolland, an independent advertising representative, spoke to students at the 2014 International Media Seminar held in Paris, France. Rolland's presentation included a description of her work and the difficulties of effectively advertising for physical publications such as the USA Today and Asian Aviation.

            Rolland began her presentation by asking students how they read the news and found that most students prefer digital news media instead of the traditional print. She informed the students that the influx of digital media presents challenges to publications that print newspapers and magazines. She spoke about the additional challenges of selling American newspapers to foreign businesses. “It begins to become a challenge. Print and digital media combinations and the businesses budget constraints make it hard to sell the USA Today to hotels,” she said.

            Rolland told students about her role at Asian Aviation, a technical aviation magazine, and the benefits of advertising and networking. “In a world where we email and everything is digital, we have to have face to face networking,” she said.  She passed out copies of the magazine and expressed that giving free copies of her publications to businesses promotes awareness. “The best way to sale our magazine is to send it to people so they can see it,” she said.

            Finally, she spoke about the benefits of social media and advertising. “My publisher is excited about the new digital app for android devices….it opens up new doors for us,” she expressed. Her optimism about embracing technology and digital innovations to promote traditional print shows how bright the future is for advertisement and marketing.