Martin Cooper, APR
Martin Cooper, President of Cooper Communications, Inc., provides crisis communications, strategic planning, and senior public relations and marketing counsel to clients of McCue Marketing Communications. He is a marketing professional with more than 40 years of local, national, and international experience in marketing, strategic planning, crisis management and communications, public relations, advertising, promotion and cause-related marketing.
His firm was founded in 1982, and has represented a broad range of corporate, governmental, healthcare, and nonprofit clients, from entrepreneurial firms to Fortune 500 corporations, including: the Bob Hope (Burbank) Airport, Burlington Air Express, California Department of Fish and Game, City of Santa Barbara, KCET-TV (PBS), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles Times, Mattel Toys, Merrill Lynch, the Sultan of Brunei, and 21st Century Insurance Co.
From 1979 to 1982, Cooper was Senior Vice President-Marketing and Communications for Playboy Enterprises, Inc., reporting to Hugh Hefner, responsible for corporate and investor relations, marketing, advertising, merchandising, promotion, and public relations. While there, he created and produced the Playboy Jazz Festival.
From 1970 to 1979, he was Senior Vice President of Harshe-Rotman & Druck Public Relations, supervising programs for such major clients as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its annual Academy Awards; the Pasadena Tournament of Roses; and Mattel Toys.
Prior to that, Cooper was Director of Marketing for Universal Studios’ Recreation Division, with responsibility for the Universal Studios Tour and other leisure-time and land development subsidiaries. Previously, he was Disneyland’s Advertising and Promotion Manager, often working directly with Walt Disney.
A frequent speaker before professional, management and civic groups nationally and internationally, Cooper has authored a book on the Academy Awards; written chapters in several books on marketing and management; and contributed more than 50 articles to various publications.
He has supervised numerous programs that have been recognized by his professional peers, and received his profession’s highest award, the Public Relations Society of America’s Silver Anvil. Cooper has also been honored by more than 20 other professional organizations.
In 1996, the Los Angeles Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA-LA) honored Cooper with its Outstanding Professional Award, bestowed for lifetime achievement in his profession, and in 1997 he was awarded its Community Service Award for his civic and philanthropic activities.
In 2003, The Executives, a support group of the Jewish Home for the Aging, presented him its highest honor, the Circle of Life Award. That same year he received the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA).
In 2005, he was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the City’s Quality and Productivity Commission, and is now President of the Commission. He is also currently Past Chairman of VICA and Chairman of its Board of Governors; a member of the Board of Directors of the Valley Economic Alliance; Founding President and a member of the Board of The Executives; Vice Chair-Marketing of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley; a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; an Honorary Fellow of the Harry Truman Library Institute; and a member of the Director’s Council of UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Library.
Cooper was President of the Encino Chamber of Commerce (1990); President of PRSA-LA (1991); President of The Executives (1992-93); Chairman of the Board of the Western Region of the American Red Magen David for Israel, Israel’s Red Cross Society (2001-2004); and Chairman of the Board of VICA (2004-05).
He has been a member of the California State Senate Small Business Advisory Commission, a member of the Board of the San Fernando Valley Unit of the American Cancer Society, a member of the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council, and a member of the City of Los Angeles Business Retention and Attraction Task Force. He currently writes a regular column for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.
Cooper teaches marketing, strategic planning and public relations at UCLA Extension and the Western Association of Chamber Executives’ Academy. He is a graduate of UCLA, where he was editor of the Daily Bruin, and has also studied at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the U.K.
