Al and Laura Ries to discuss the future of business advertising at Mobium New Paradigm event on November 1

2002-08-01

Controversial best-selling authors Al and Laura Ries will take the stage early Friday morning November 1 to burst a few business marketing bubbles at the Mobium New Paradigm Series, one of the BIGfrontier Big Idea Breakfasts.

Despite their penchant for brewing up storms of debate, the Rieses seem to have one of the clearest crystal balls in the marketing world. Al Ries coined the term “positioning” back when most of today’s business marketers were still influenced by the “Sell GRIT!” ads on the back of comic books. As the co-authors of “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” “The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding,” and the soon-to-be-released “The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR,” the Ries and Ries team is not shy about calling trends or making waves.

“The ad industry felt that Internet advertising was going to be the Great Hope,” recalls Laura Ries. “They thought it would be just like television, a medium driven by big ad dollars. They were wrong. The give-content-away, make-money-on-advertising revenue model does not work on the Internet,”

“Why? Interactivity. People can choose what and how they view material on the Internet. And most people will choose to avoid advertising at all costs,” says Ries.

Then what might the future of business advertising actually look like? Will it be a biometrically triggered, human cookie, can’t-find-the-off-switch world as depicted in the summer blockbuster film Minority Report? Or are the writings of marketing analysts like the Rieses an indicator of things to come?

“The rise of advertising volume coincided with a decline in advertising effectiveness,” contends Laura Ries. “Every advertising effectiveness study shows the same results. The more advertising in a given medium, the less effective each individual advertisement is.”

“As advertising volume has increased, advertising messages have become wallpaper,” according to Al Ries. “It’s not only the volume of advertising that works against its effectiveness, it’s also the number of different messages the average individual is exposed to.”

But there is an even more important reason for the decline in advertising effectiveness. One that business marketers especially should be aware of. According to Ries, “The average viewer feels that the information presented in advertisements is one-sided. It doesn’t tell the whole story, it doesn’t present alternatives and it is often misleading.”

Gordon Hochhalter, a Mobium partner, thinks the Rieses’ ideas get more than their share of marketers’ attention and interest. “That’s why we’ve asked them to join us and a special group of business marketers to present their latest ideas on how they think business communications and branding can be made more effective in this new paradigm,” says Hochhalter. “Their point of view may make you angry or get you nodding your head in agreement. Either way you’re reacting, you’re engaged and ready to begin a dialogue.”

According to Hochhalter’s co-partner, Guy Gangi, that’s the idea behind Mobium’s New Paradigm series, an ongoing event the company puts on with BIGfrontier as part of their Big Idea Breakfasts. “The purpose is to start conversations about how business branding, marketing and communications is changing,” Gangi contends. “So over the next several months we’ll be bringing thoughtful, controversial, nationally known authors and thought leaders to Mobium for breakfast forums.”

“The Mobium/BIGfrontier breakfast series is a new forum for providing high-level speakers and focused content to specific channels in the business community. The Rieses are an example of bringing in an expert with a viewpoint who will provide actionable solutions that stimulate conversations back at the company. That’s how change begins,” says Steve Lundin, executive director of BigFrontier.

Leading up to the Ries breakfast, Mobium and BigFrontier will present snippets from their upcoming book as well as an exclusive three-part interview on their Web sites. And after the breakfast they will post video summaries of the presentation as they did with author Emanuel Rosen’s recent New Paradigm presentation on “Nine Ways to Create Buzz.”

“All to keep the discussion, the dialogue, the buzz and the revolution going,” says Hochhalter.

The Rieses’ New Paradigm presentation will be held at the Mobium Creative Group offices, 2000 Merchandise Mart, Chicago, Ill. The breakfast begins at 7:45 AM, with a presentation from 8:15-9:30AM. Attendees must RSVP for this event. Details are at www.mobium.com.

About Al and Laura Ries

Ries & Ries was founded in 1994 by Al Ries and his daughter Laura Ries in Great Neck, New York. Prior to 1994, Al was with his former partner Jack Trout in Greenwich, Connecticut. And Laura was working as an account manager at TBWA Advertising in New York. Al decided he wanted to work with his daughter and Laura decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of working with her mentor. Al remains friends with Jack Trout, although he has found much happiness in his new partnership. Ries & Ries relocated to a warmer climate in 1997 where they are currently located in Roswell, Georgia, outside Atlanta.

In 1998, Al Ries and Laura Ries co-authored “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” published by HarperCollins. This book laid down the laws for building any product or service into a world-class brand. It hit number nine on the BusinessWeek bestseller list in January 1999.

In 1999, Al was named one of the 100 most influential public relations people of the 20th century by PR Week magazine. He also was profiled in the June 28th issue of BusinessWeek magazine.

In the year 2000, Al Ries and Laura Ries co-authored “The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding,” published by HarperCollins, a book that uses Ries' marketing savvy and expertise in branding and brings it to the Internet. Al and Laura have defined the laws for the biggest challenge of the new millennium: what to do about the Internet and how to build an Internet brand. See www.ries.com.

About the Mobium New Paradigm Series

The Mobium New Paradigm Series is a forum to explore the paradigm shifts that are revolutionizing business branding and communications. We hope it will stimulate dialogue among business marketers on how to convert these revolutionary changes into a competitive advantage in their markets.

Join the revolution. Join the conversation.

For notification on upcoming events, click here.

About Mobium Creative Group

Mobium Creative Group is a full-service, integrated business branding and communications firm specializing in integrated communications, branding, relationship marketing, interactive media, and information architecture. Clientele include MeadWestvaco Corporation, NEC-Mitsubishi, Motorola GTSS, CNH Global, NovaMed, Farm Progress, Tellabs, and Ondeo Nalco Company. In January of 2002, Mobium launched its new web-site (www.mobium.com), which is an interactive book that helps business marketers, communicators, brand builders and change agents, as well as its own employees, better define revolutionary paradigm shifts and explore ways to take advantage of them.
www.mobium.com

About BIGfrontier

BIGfrontier is Midwest’s largest technology networking event. The quarterly networking events regularly draw between 300-500 attendees for a night of unique content, presentations and an unparalleled networking experience. The BIGfrontier BIG Idea Breakfast series was launched in April 2002. The BIGfrontier Midnight Missive newsletter is distributed biweekly to 5,000 technology professionals and the BIGfrontier website carries over two years of event content, streaming video and photos. Called “the biggest…some say the best of the internetworking events” by Chicago Magazine, BIGfrontier continues to grow in both size, substance and value. From C-level to IT-level, everybody mixes it up at BIGfrontier.
www.bigfrontier.org