Ries & Ries

Our approach

Most marketing consultants have no coherent strategy themselves. They are perfectly willing to tell you what to do, but they seldom take their own advice. We do. Our strategy is called “Focus,” and it’s the subject of a book we wrote 15 years ago. Today, we call ourselves “focusing consultants” and we help our clients refocus their companies around a singular idea or concept. If you study successful companies in the past, they initially all built their businesses with a single conceptual idea.

DellPersonal computers sold direct to businesses.
ZapposFree shipping, Both ways.
FedExOvernight delivery.

Over time, companies drift sideways, get into many different businesses and often lose their focus. We can help isolate that single idea that can help your company or brand recapture its momentum. But it’s not just an idea you need. The most powerful aspect of a marketing program is not a verbal idea, it’s something totally different.

The Visual Hammer

Every brand needs both a verbal nail and a visual hammer. Some of the most successful brands in the past used exactly this approach.

Marlboro “The masculine cigarette” & the cowboy
Coca-Cola “The real thing” & the contour bottle.
Tropicana “Not from concentrate” & straw in the orange.

Many brands have strong verbal ideas, but lack visuals that can hammer these ideas into the mind. Many other brands have strong visual ideas, but lack verbal ideas that can take advantage of these visuals.

Our philosophy is simple: Never settle for just a verbal approach. Rather, try to find the right combination of a visual hammer and a verbal nail. If you can do that, your brand has a good chance of becoming an enormous success.

One-day Session

Our one-day session is designed to do just that. Find the right combination of a visual hammer and a verbal nail.

Why does Ries & Ries do one-day sessions when most marketing consultants work on a 60-day or 90-day cycle? Most companies don’t need a consultant to generate a lot of facts, opinions, ideas and concepts, all packaged together in an expensive binder. Most companies already have more information than any one person can absorb. What companies need is someone to help them simplify and generalize the data. In other words, someone to help them find a visual hammer and a verbal nail. Both Al Ries and Laura Ries will personally conduct the session.

We also do international consulting assignments in partnership with affiliates in Germany, Austria, China, Mexico and Spain. You can either contact us or email one of our partners to set it up.

Who should attend?

We suggest that the company’s entire top-management team (up to 8 or 10 people) attend the session. Every company has people who literally think differently, as explained in our latest book, War in the Boardroom. There are left brainers (verbal, logical, analytical) and there are right brainers (visual, intuitive, holistic.)

One of the purposes of a strategy session is to assure that everyone participates in developing the company’s visual/verbal strategy and that everyone enthusiastically supports the strategy that is developed. If at the end of the day everyone doesn’t agree on the proposed strategy, then Ries & Ries will have failed.

What else will we accomplish?

In addition to developing an overall visual/verbal strategy, we will also develop suggestions for executing the strategy.

For example, it’s usually a mistake to try to put a new idea into prospects’ minds with advertising. Advertising doesn’t have the credibility to do that. Rather, a company should use PR, or public relations, to establish the position and then at some point in time it can switch to advertising to maintain that position.

PR first, advertising second is what we recommend in our book, “The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR. But PR is just one of the ways to execute a new strategy.

Other ways to build your brand.

There are many other ways to build strong brands. Packaging, trademarks, distribution, pricing, websites, social media. These and other issues will be explored during the session.

Our branding philosophy is outlined in our book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.” The book covers such issues as the use of second brands, the shape and color of logotypes, the importance of a category name and other issues often overlooked by marketing people.

One could argue that laws are made to be broken. And that’s true. But it is helpful to know what the laws are first before you decide whether in your case you want to take the risk.

Every brand needs two names.

A brand name and a category name. Marketing people often overlook the opportunity to create a new category. Yet many of the most long-lasting brands owe their success to exactly this strategy.

Starbucks The first high-end coffee shop.
Red Bull The first energy drink.
Activia The first probiotic yogurt.

There are endless opportunities to create new brands, providing you can create a new category to define your brand. We discuss this phenomenon in our book, “The Origin of Brands.” It’s based on Charles Darwin’s book, “The Origin of Species.” Over time, every species will diverge and become two or more different species. The same thing happens in product categories.

A follow-up report.

A week or so after the session is completed, Ries & Ries will send you an eight to ten-page report summarizing the strategic recommendations made at the session. In addition, we are available via telephone or email to answer any questions you still might have. Quite frequently, we are asked to comment on PR campaigns or new names developed as a result of the session.