Speakers.com sorrowfully marks the passing of one of the world’s greatest marketing pioneers, Al Ries. Al was the father of positioning, a legendary marketing strategist, a global brand in his own right and the bestselling author of 12 books that have sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Positioning is a concept that shook the marketing world in the 1970s and continues to be one of the most important and influential strategies in business. The book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind is a classic that continues to be used in universities and companies around the world. As a marketing consultant, Al worked with hundreds of global companies including Apple, Disney, Frito-Lay, Ford, Microsoft, Monsanto, Georgia-Pacific, Great Wall Motors, P&G, Papa John’s Pizza, Samsung, Siemens, and Unilever. In 2016, Al was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame in New York City.
For the past 28 years, he has worked side by side with his daughter Laura Ries at Ries & Ries consulting in New York. Together they have co-written many ground-breaking books on marketing including The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, Origin of Brands and War in the Boardroom. Laura Ries will continue as Global Chairwoman of the Ries consulting company. The latest marketing ideas from Ries are Visual Hammer and Battlecry. Visuals were the missing piece of the positioning theory. Words alone can’t build a brand, driving an idea into the mind is best done with the emotional power of a visual. A battlecry is a memorable slogan that leverages the power of sounds. For those who would like to learn more about Al Ries’s incredible contributions, please visit https://www.alries.com/obit.
