Go Big or Go Home: Q&A With Christian Titze

2016 was a pretty crazy year. A lot happened, including our Los Angeles office celebrating its first birthday. We caught up with the CEO of Edenspiekermann LA, Christian Titze, to ask him a few questions about our sunniest office’s first year and what 2017 has in store.

It was over a year ago that you started out in LA. What were your expectations, and have they been met?

I think us Germans sometimes have a tendency to generalize our knowledge about the US, or even assume that consuming American pop culture like TV shows gives us a cultural understanding that makes it easy to switch to living here and “getting it”. It’s a bit of a cultural arrogance that can backfire, which is why I tried to go without too many expectations, either professionally or personally. I’d been to LA a couple of times before I moved. I’ve always loved spending time here and was very excited to get the opportunity to finally live and work in California.

Mediating between the cultures is still very much a part of my job today. I act as an interface and ambassador between our global management, our partners in Berlin, and our local and international staff here on the ground. We’re trying to establish something that incorporates the best of all worlds.

You just moved to a new office, yay! How has the team grown over the last year?

We took a bold step, moving from sunny, beachy Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles. We’re one of the first major global design firms to move to Downtown LA and I think that’s a big development. We’ve earned the move, and our team has grown from 5 to about 15, and we needed more space. Actually, we won a big new account at the same time as the move, so it was definitely the right thing to do. It’s really paid off.

And what about projects?

We came to LA for Red Bull, and we’re lucky because our relationship with Red Bull in LA is built on trust, transparency and longevity. We’ve also been very successful in terms of business development, branching out into all sorts of industries, just the same as the other Edenspiekermann offices. We recently worked with a global think tank in Canada for example, traveling there to work with them on their rebrand. We also won a great account with Time Inc., redesigning HelloGiggles who are based just a few blocks away from our new office. At the moment, we’re working with two clients in the financial services sector, so we’ve got it all covered: from digital editorial to FinTech.

How does the industry in LA differ to what you’d experienced in Germany?

This is my favorite question, because it’s a very striking difference. The main difference is that there’s a tremendous appreciation for our service in the US. Germany and the US have different perspectives when it comes to marketing and branding. Germany is traditionally an engineering nation. Our economic success is built on people working on machines, making things that are perfect and ideally run forever. As a result, there’s a view that marketing and branding are things that aren’t needed if the product itself is great: why make a big deal about it if the product quality speaks for itself? It’s a very traditional German way of thinking about marketing or branding. I think that even in today’s more marketing-oriented world these topics can be an afterthought—something that comes at the end of a project, if budget allows.

In the US the culture is obviously more sales-oriented, and everything related to marketing, sales, communication or branding is highly valued; it’s as important as the production, or finance, or whatever. It’s a very well-considered part of businesses and a major aspect of all business planning. This is reflected in our clients’ strategies and initiatives. What we’re doing for them is a critical part of their business, and our work is appreciated as such.

What do you think the other Edenspiekermann offices can learn from how we do business in Los Angeles?

Go big or go home.

If California inspires you to think one thing, it’s this. If you want to win and succeed, it takes guts and boldness and thinking big. In Germany, business is generally a bit more careful, considered, and calculated. Sometimes in California you can only seize an opportunity if you have this “go big or go home” attitude. It’s a big cultural difference; it’s a different way of approaching opportunities.

What’s next for the LA team? What can you see in your Californian crystal ball?

The great thing about working with Edenspiekermann is that we’re not about chasing one revenue target after the other. There’s a clear growth vision, but we’re not going to do that at any cost.

What’s important for us this year is finding clients who appreciate our work and who we can inspire as partners in the long run. Long term, I would love to see another US office, possibly on the east coast. We do a lot of business on Eastern Time already, and it would be a great next step if opportunities allow. I’m excited to see where this great American adventure will take us all!