Ries & Ries

About Ries & Ries

Al Ries & his daughter Laura Ries have been working together as focusing consultants for 18 years.

Ries & Ries was founded in New York in 1994. Three years later, Al & Laura relocated to Atlanta, Georgia.

But the Ries team spends most of its time on the road consulting with top corporations around the world from Microsoft to Ford, Disney, Merck, Frito-Lay, and many others.

The dynamic duo and bestselling authors have been profiled by Business Week, Marketing News, Advertising Age, The Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and countless other domestic & international publications.

Al first rose to fame in 1972 when a series of three articles on a new concept called “Positioning” authored by Al Ries & Jack Trout appeared in Advertising Age. The positioning idea took the ad world by storm and was voted by AdAge as one of the 75 most important advertising ideas of the past 75 years.

In 1981, the Positioning book was published and has since sold well over 1 million copies. The book has sold over 400,000 copies in China alone. The two authors also wrote Marketing Warfare, Bottom-Up Marketing, Horse Sense and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

More recently, Al & Laura have written six books together and have continued to rattle the establishment by breaking with traditional conventions.

War in the Boardroom (2009). Management people tend to be left brainers: Verbal, logical and analytic. Marketing people tend to be right brainers: Visual, intuitive, holistic. This book helps both sides better understand each other by explaining how each views critical marketing concepts. Narrow line vs. full-line. Different products vs. better products. First minder vs. first mover. Marketing sense vs. common sense.

Laura has a new book, Visual Hammer (2012). It will be released in early 2012. The critical missing piece in most marketing programs is a powerful visual that can drive a brand into the mind. This book outlines the steps a brand needs to take to develop a visual hammer.

Ries & Ries books include:

Focus: The future of your company depends on it (1996). This book outlines the core concept of Ries & Ries. Without a focus, it’s almost impossible to build a brand no matter what other laws you follow.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (1998). This book covers every aspect of branding from the name to the category, from expansion to contraction, from the use of PR and advertising, to the shape and color of logotypes. Known as the Branding Bible.

The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding (2000). This book supplements the 22 laws by adding 11 additional laws that cover the special needs of Internet brands like interactivity, proper names and divergence.

The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR (2002). This book contradicts traditional wisdom that calls for new brands to be launched with a big-bang advertising campaign. PR first to establish credibility, advertising second to maintain market share.

The Origin of Brands (2004). Divergence, an idea borrowed from Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, creates endless opportunities to build new brands. Every brand needs to evolve, but new brands should take advantage of divergence to create new categories.