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Meet David and Diane Eichler of Decibel Blue/Decibel Green in Scottsdale

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Today, we’d like to introduce you to David and Diane Eichler.

David and Diane, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I (Diane) have 20 years of experience in branding, marketing and advertising on both the client and agency side. I launched my career in Los Angeles, where David and I met, working at acclaimed design agency COY. I moved to Toyota Motor Sales as a Director of Marketing and was the agency lead for the North American launch of the Toyota Celica, Spyder and ECHO. Along the way I have worked with clients in real estate, technology, banking and finance, healthcare and wellness, non-profit, education, automotive, sports and entertainment, telecommunications, QSR, retail, law, broadcasting and hospitality.

I (David) always tell people that Diane is the pure bred and I’m the mutt. Why do I say that? I started in film production – an 11-year-tour-of-duty in Hollywood — developing and writing screenplays, overseeing the production and marketing of features at Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox — including “Rapid Fire”, “Free Willy 2”, “Broken Arrow”, and “Murder at 1600”. I then had a stint during the dotcom revolution in Palo Alto as a V.P. of Content for a start up, and then as the Director of Brand Marketing for an enterprise-software company serving Fortune 100 clients. After 9/11 we moved to Phoenix and I tackled marketing and public relations assignments in the the arts and tourism worlds.

Decibel Blue was founded in 2005 and we are a full-service, digital, public relations and advertising firm that has developed a proprietary approach to help clients Sound Loud®. This approach molds strategy and imagination into dynamic ideas focused on growth and a high return on investment for our clients. Decibel Blue specializes in wellness, real estate and multi-unit retail and restaurant brands. We later expanded into the cannabis space by forming Decibel Green, which is based in Denver.

We were honored with an IMPACT Award and were a winner or finalist for the OBIE Outdoor Award, the Spirit of Enterprise and numerous MarComs. Oh, and PR Daily named us the nation’s top integrated communications agency, with the 2014 ACE Award. That was cool.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We have been very fortunate, however the road of a business owner has plenty of bumps and pot holes. For starters, if you do the math you see that we were still very much a start up when the recession hit. I think we were young and/or dumb enough not to fully grasp what was happening so we just put our heads down and got through it.

The marketing and public relations agency industry is a volatile one. In fact, the nature of the agency world 2018 is an average 18-month client churn. It’s no coincidence that that is the average lifespan of a marketing VP or CMO.  Everyone is always in business development mode and on the hunt for different, fresh and innovative ways to replenish and grow the client base.

Decibel Blue/Decibel Green – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Besides all the usual propaganda mentioned earlier, we are very proud of sticking to our values and fostering a culture of respect and empowerment. We promote from within whenever possible. We pay 100% of a great health benefits package because it’s the right thing to do. Everyone gets their work done when they need to, where they need to, but nobody punches a clock. We think an employee policy centered around face time is a joke.  Everyone is expected to put their families first. Asking someone to choose between their sick sister or their son’s soccer game and work is simply a non-starter. That’s why we do everything in teams. Make no mistake, we do great work and are fiercely dedicated to making our clients successful, but that doesn’t mean we have to be jerks while we do it. More important than anything is treating each other with empathy and appreciation. Some of Decibel Blue’s clients include Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins, Elements Massage and Tuft & Needle. Decibel Green’s client portfolio includes Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), and acclaimed researcher Sue Sisley, M.D.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I (David) will take that one first because my answer is a bit unique. Back in my producer days, I had the opportunity to work closely on a film with its composer. We had a 90-person symphony orchestra laying down the tracks and a couple of times I gave the composer notes on what had just been recorded. He consulted with the arranger who relayed changes to the “band.” Boom! They played exactly what I asked for. We were on a sound stage at MGM where the Wizard of Oz was scored so the whole thing was just epic, especially for someone as young as I was at that stage.

As for Decibel Blue, we have had some very exciting moments but the one that rises to the top is is when we won the Dunkin’ Donuts account. They were re-launching the brand in AZ and we were selected ahead of literally every agency in town. We were just a little four person shop at that point, but we had energy and ideas and by some miracle they picked us. More importantly, 10 years later we’ve opened over 70 stores for them in 4 states and now also represent Baskin-Robbins which is owned by the same parent company. So we must be doing something right huh?

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