RIES: Positioning Pioneers. Al Ries founded his first agency in RCC in 1963 in New York City. Today, his daughter Laura Ries is Chairwoman of RIES, a global strategic consulting firm. 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 with Al Ries as the lead auther and has since sold well over 4 million copies. Al & Laura have written six books together including The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, the Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, The Origin of Brands, War in the Boardroom, Visual Hammer, Battlecry and Positioning in the 21st Century.