P.R. Firm Helps Keep Employees Attuned to Work

Ambitious young executives eager to prove their company loyalty may soon be whistling in the hallways--and the tune is likely to be a motivational corporate anthem.

Companies’ advertising jingles already blanket radio and television, but now a fledgling public relations firm in Playa del Rey is pushing music with a business message into the workplace.

It is writing and producing full-length inspirational songs for companies and trade associations. Trainees listen to them at management seminars, and callers placed on hold become captive audiences.

Three-month-old Ecker Group charges about $6,000 for a one-year lease on an original song, said Charles Ecker, the company’s founder. Lease extensions come at a predetermined, reduced rate, but Ecker Group retains the copyright and charges extra if the song is used on radio or television.

So far, four companies have paid for the songs, which are available in such music styles as anthems, contemporary pop and country.

One client, the management training division of Marriott Hotels & Resorts, has leased a contemporary pop tune that includes the lines:

We aim to please both day and night.

We Marriott folks do it right.

The company played the song four times a day during a recent five-day training seminar for 47 new hotel managers, said Linda Bokach, Marriott’s senior manager for training and development. “They definitely were grooving to the music, bop-bopping up and down,” she said, adding that she hopes to order another song for advanced training sessions.

Aimed at strengthening corporate culture, the lyrics of Marriott’s song focus on hospitality, family and pride. The possibilities for similar songs in other industries seem limitless--defense contractors might commission marches with background music reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.”

Corporate mergers might create the unusual problem of combining songs, however. A takeover of aircraft maker Boeing by, say, T. Boone Pickens Jr.’s Mesa Petroleum might produce more than a few sour notes.