CHARLES R. ECKER - Setting the Scene

CHARLES R. ECKER - Strategic & Creative Public Relations and Public Affairs

SETTING THE SCENE

Developing an effective communications strategy hitting the right demographics, finessing the goals to fit the framework, then executing the tactics in the most timely and cost-effective way. That's what has guided Los Angeles-based Charles Rudolph Ecker throughout a Public Relations and Public Affairs career that began in 1977, nearly one decade after he first went in front of the cameras and microphones during a fast-paced radio and television news career logging in excess of 6,000 live broadcasts.

He has shown over the years -- with over 100 clients to his credit -- a resolve to cut through the clutter of competitive business environments by clearly conveying memorable messages, and responding, in terms of Corporate Communications, Crisis Communications, Marketing Communications and Public Affairs, with crisp and often creative thinking.

Ecker's background as a newspaper reporter, magazine writer and broadcaster skilled at providing insight to corporate chiefs and non-profit heads on how the media thinks and what it wants, has served him well. Sometimes it is quick reaction to a breaking story; other times it is providing a feature "hook" to get media attention.

Let's take a look at some of the 'stars' on his 'marquee'.

NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS FIRST GUEST PUBLICITY

A man contacted the pre-opening sales office of this upscale Times Square convention hotel in 1983 as the frame was still being constructed. This was when Times Square was a tawdry and not very safe tourist draw in midtown Manhattan. He said that his father had taken him as a youngster, for a New Year's Eve stay at the Astor Hotel, once at Times Square but now torn down to make way for the Marriott Marquis. He said with his wife due to have a child in a year, he wanted to book a room for his family overlooking the 1999 festivities on Broadway on New Year's Eve.

The request, given that the hotel was far from completion years short of the man's check-in date, was sent up the chain of management to corporate headquarters, where a Senior V.P. called in Charlie Ecker from the corporate public relations department down the hall for his advice.

Charlie immediately saw immense publicity potential in the new century "first guest" and went to New York to meet the man. He wanted to make sure the man was the "real deal."

There was a backstory to this -- Marriott actually "owned" the property instead of working off a management contract, and if the Marriott hotel succeeded, property values would go up and owners of strip-tease clubs, X-rated theaters and the like would sell off and shut down, paving the way for both commercial and residential gentrification. If not, much was at risk financially for not only the company but also the City of New York.

So at lunch, it was apparent the man was genuine and the only thing Charlie wanted to impress on him was that the 21st Century really began on New Year's Eve, 2000. "Not to worry," said the man -- "I want to party like it's 1999."

And so it went, as the man was taken one month later up the hotel structure in the construction elevator wearing a hard hat -- to pick his room in a skyscraper that as yet had no exterior 'skin'.

Then, with two dozen major media in attendance, he was presented with an oversized room reservation (Charlie's idea) by a company big wig and told that all expenses would be picked up by Marriott for his guaranteed stay.

Later that night, on the "Tonight Show" Johnny Carson quipped: "So the first hotel guest of the new century was given his December 31, 1999 room confirmation at the Marriott Marquis at Times Square, not built yet. That's the good news...

"So what'll happen when he shows up at 6 p.m. that night and is told the maids haven't made up the beds yet?

"We shall see..."

AP, UPI, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Metromedia, Paul Harvey, Charles Osgood, disc jockey call-ins from around the country on Charlie's greatest PR "stunt" ever. It was so big that the Baltimore Sun even wrote an article about his PR skills that led to the big splash.

The man, by the way, was invited by Dick Clark to appear on "New Year's Rockin' Eve" December 31st, 1999. But true to his word, he and his family spent the evening looking out from their room onto the Broadway crowd, just like in his long-ago childhood.

NEW OTANI EFFORT TO SEEK A FAIR NLRB VOTE

A very tough and very stressful campaign. In the mid-90s, Local 11 of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union had been trying for over a year to circumvent a National Labor Relations Board secret-ballot election and force a card check count of the workers who represented 24 different nationalities at the New Otani Hotel located in Little Tokyo.

The union thinking was that hotel management and the Japanese parent company would avoid public confrontation and easily capitulate to this process which subverts a secret-ballot election.

What it did not recognize was that the employees were paid, on average, more than counterparts at American-owned hotels in Los Angeles. And they felt they were treated well by management. What they did not like was having union reps visiting their homes late at night to sign cards.

Using virtually all forms of issues-management approaches, including co-writing an extensive "white paper" on union arm-twisting "corporate campaign strategies," Charlie, coming in six months after the union had begun a very strident "informational picket," worked with New Otani management and the legal defense team to garned local community support for a free election.

The quote of the campaign came when Charlie was interviewed by Richard Quest, now at CNN but then a field reporter for BBC Television. " It is hard to imagine," stated Charlie," that a Japanese company is strenuously defending the right of American workers to take part in a secret ballot election, something that is so fundamental in the United States' democratic process."

After a two-year fight, the union walked away.

CONTROL DATA BUSINESS CENTERS PROGRAM

Charlie, then a Senior Account Executive at prestigious Dudley-Anderson-Yutzy, was called into the main conference room at this Top 15 international PR agency one afternoon and asked for some advice. Not yet briefed on the particular client company and its top executives in the room for a high level meeeting, Charlie faced a room of about one dozen very stern-looking people.

Hardly having a chance to sit down, he was told Control Data Corporation, through its financial services subsidary, Commercial Credit Company, was planning the launch of purpose-built office suites in major markets featuring financial services - including SBA loans, insurance packages,vehicle leasing and computer-based education programs, all aimed at help small businesses grow and prosper.

This had never been attempted before.

What was lacking was a marketing theme. How would the public best understand the concept?

In what seemed like just seconds, Charlie suggested -- 'The Supermarket for Small Business.'

Kind of like the legendary adman Jerry McGee's first feather in his cap with Ogilvy & Mather's "The Best Part of Waking Up, is Folger's in Your Cup." That slogan is still being used forty years later!

And so Charlie's "hook" was very quickly accepted and subsequently incorporated in all PR materials and advertising after a phone call to the company president got an instant green light on the spot.

End of meeting!

So it went that Charlie was put on the account that day and not only did the campaign he now ran hit the ground running two weeks later with a major article in The Wall Street Journal, but Charlie was offered the position of media relations director at CCC one year later to handle projects for the business centers and the 31 other corporate operating units.

It was an offer too good to refuse!

In every city where a Control Data Business Center would open, Charlie pitched, and got, major business page articles appearing with the "Small Business Supermarket" hook also catching on with local televsion and radio news directors assigning street reporters to cover the openings.

For his efforts, Charlie earned the coveted Control Data Medallion for Service Excellence, an award he still treasures to this day more than any of his other PR honors.

Because it all started with one strong creative idea and his tactic elements that stayed on the message because a Chairman and CEO both believed in Charlie's focus, energy and skills!

THE DEWARS 'DO-ERS' AWARDS

In the fall of 1988, Charlie had joined a West Los Angeles public relations agency as Vice President and it had in its lap an interesting alliterative "Dewar's Do-ers" 'hook' to honor out-standing achievers in California, Texas and New York. Trouble was, while the creative tag was clever, the first event to honor local "Do-ers" in San Francisco didn't draw any media attention.

So in this case, Charlie was brought into the account team and asked to think 'out of the box' to find a way to generate media interest in the remaining events.

Needless to say, the account, representing the agency's only national client, was very much on the line and there was no quick and easy answer!

What Charlie came up with was not an almost instant thought like the Business Center idea. Rather, he researched the history of the Dewar's Profiles advertising campaign and suggested that if Schenley Industries, importer of Dewars, held off further action for at least three months until early 1990, the PR program could be timed to the 21st anniversary of the campaign -- to make it of "legal age" so to speak.

At the same time, in what became the "stick that stirred the drink" for what turned out to be a thirsty media, Charlie suggested that alumni from the campaign, beginning with the first Dewar's Profile subject -- Broadway stage star Jerry Orbach -- be brought into the mix. So each party was attended by representatives from the fifth, tenth and fifteenth years with the newest subject -- Artist Dan Rizzi -- introduced at his hometown Dallas party and also in New York the following week. Orbach served as Master of Ceremonies at each event and soon after joined the cast of "Law & Order," the most successful crime drama in T.V. history, one that continues to this day.

The twist worked and extensive news coverage ensued throughout the marketing communications campaign.

So what had first floundered became a successful campaign that garned PR awards from the Public Relations Society of America, International Association of Business Communicators, Publicity Club of Los Angeles and Beverage Retailer magazine, the latter publication of utmost important to the brand's American distribution system.