Irving Jacob Rein is a professor of
Communication Studies
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...
at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
.
He is the author of many books on effective communication strategies and marketing.
Over the course of his career, Rein has researched, taught, and published in the areas of popular culture, crisis management, communication in sports and place marketing. As a member of the Northwestern community he has inspired many students’ love of popular culture. Before beginning his successful career, Rein received a B.A. and a B.S. from the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
. After completing his undergraduate studies at Minnesota, Rein took a teaching job at Coronado High School from 1960 to 1962 before entering graduate school, receiving a M.A. from
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
and a Ph.D from the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
. Rein currently resides in
Winnetka, Illinois
Winnetka () is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located north of downtown Chicago. The population was 12,316 as of 2019. The village is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of household income. It was the second- ...
, and enjoys spending time with his two children and two grandchildren.
As a faculty member at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
from 1965 to 1969, Rein was director of the public speaking program, where he taught students such as
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...
,
Lou Dobbs,
William Weld
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, and
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...
. Rein soon moved back to the Midwest and began teaching at Northwestern in 1969. In his time at Northwestern, he co-founded the Northwestern Master of Science in Communication program (MSC) with Professor Paul Arnston, which was the first professional Communications Master’s degree for executives. Additionally, he has been able to continually pursue his love of athletics, as a member of the Advisory Board for Northwestern University’s Master of Arts in Sports Administration, serving on
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
’s Commissioners’ Initiative for the 21st Century, and being the chairman of the MLB’s Youth Initiative.
Irving Rein also had a successful career in many diverse fields as a consultant, bringing those experiences back to the classroom. As a part of
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
’s astronaut training program for sixteen years, he conducted Public Communication Seminars and was responsible for developing the in-space communication program, which included teaching in space, press conferences and appearances in the media. In the political sphere, he served as a communication advisor for such campaigns as
Richard M. Daley
Richard Michael Daley (born April 24, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term ...
,
Adlai Stevenson III
Adlai Ewing Stevenson III (October 10, 1930 – September 6, 2021) was an American attorney and politician of the Democratic Party who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1970 until 1981. A member of the prominent Stevenson fami ...
, Michael Howlett, Jr. ,
Harold Washington
Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as ma ...
,
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...
, Neal Hartigan and
Lisa Madigan
Lisa Murray Madigan (born July 30, 1966) is an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as Attorney General of the U.S. state of Illinois from 2003 to 2019, being the first woman to hold that position. She is t ...
. Rein has also been a communication consultant to many companies and organizations, including
IBM, Mott’s,
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...
,
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
,
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
,
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...
, and the Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society (ALAS). Both within the U.S. and internationally, Rein has traveled and served as a consultant to cities, states, and nations including Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Argentina and Panama.
Rein has written many academic articles and convention papers, as well as authoring and co-authoring 13 books. The first of which was The Relevant Rhetoric in 1969, and the most recent of which were the Sports Strategist: Developing leaders for a High-Performance Industry, The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace and High Visibility: Transforming Your Personal and Professional Brand. In 1993, he joined with
Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler (born May 27, 1931) is an American marketing author, consultant, and professor emeritus; the S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (196 ...
and
Donald Haider to write about
place marketing
City marketing (related to city branding) or Place Marketing is the promotion of a city, or a district within it, with the aim of encouraging certain activities to take place there.
Place marketing "refers to the application of mark ...
. In 2006, Rein and Kotler worked with Ben Shields to examine modern sports marketing and communication in ''The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace''. In 2015, Rein and Shields partnered with Adam Grossman to analyze the future of leadership in the sports industry with "The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High-Performance Industry". He is a pioneer in the study of persuasion and influence in
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
, teaching courses on the subject at Northwestern beginning in the 1960s. He has also written on
rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
and public communication, celebrity and branding, and
crisis management
Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders. The study of crisis management originated with large-scale industrial and envir ...
. He was a recipient of the National Speakers Association's Outstanding Professor Award for 1999–2000, and in 2011, received the Clarence Simon Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring in the School of Communication.
Books
* The Relevant Rhetoric, The Free Press, 1969
* Rudy’s Red Wagon: Communication Strategies in Contemporary Society, Scott, Foresman, 1972
* The Great American Communication Catalogue, Prentice‑Hall, 1976
* The Public Speaking Book, Scott, Foresman, 1981
* High Visibility (with Philip Kotler and Martin Stoller), Dodd‑Mead, 1987
* Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry, and Tourism to Cities, States, and Nations, with Philip Kotler and Donald Haider, The Free Press, March, 1993, paperback edition, 2002
* High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Professionals into Celebrities, 2nd edition, with Philip Kotler and Martin Stoller, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company, 1997
* Marketing Places Europe, with Philip Kotler, Christer Asplund, and Donald Haider, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 1999
* Marketing Asian Places, with Philip Kotler, Michael Alan Hamlin, and Donald Haider, John Wiley, 2002
* Marketing Latin American and Caribbean Places, with Philip Kotler, David Gertner, and Donald Haider, Pearson Brazil, 2006
* High Visibility: Transforming Your Personal and Professional Brand, 3rd edition, with Philip Kotler, Michael Hamlin, and Martin Stoller, McGraw-Hill, 2006
* The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace, with Philip Kotler and Ben Shields, McGraw-Hill, 2006
* The Sports Strategist, with Ben Shields and Adam Grossman. Oxford Press, 2015
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rein, Irving J.
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
21st-century American social scientists
Arizona State University alumni
Cultural academics
Northwestern University faculty
University of Pittsburgh alumni