Working for the Best, Creating the Best, Enabling the Best

BEST OF | Issue 2 | Winter 2024

Whoever enters the rooms of Martin et Karczinski in Munich usually stands in quiet meditation for a moment. The initial view into the room, strikingly structured with alternating fair-face concrete and glass surfaces all the way to the “brightest star” is mind-boggling, pure and simple. The illuminated logo on the fore wall of the interior designed consciously down to every last detail is a highly symbolic emblem. For nearly 25 years, the holistic brand adviser for strategy, design and transformation Martin et Karczinski, with business locations in Munich and Zurich, is widely known to have turned world renowned brands into the “brightest star in their segment.” Numerous distinctions, prizes and top spots in branch rankings bear ample witness to that fact.

Founder and CEO of Martin et Karczinski is the entrepreneur, designer, brand strategist, C-level coach, university instructor and author Peter Martin. Together with his partner, Heiko Dertinger, COO Stefan Mauerer and CCO Alexander Beutel, he leads a team of approximately 80 co-workers. With their expertise in consulting, strategy, design, organisational development and communication, they map out successful processes of company transformation, develop sustained strategies for growth and transform them to living experiences which can survive as an all-encompassing whole. Best-in-class brands such as Lufthansa, Swiss, Leica, Kuka, Occhio, Axor, Gaggenau, Alape, ClassiCon, Bernd Gruber and Design Reisen have placed their fullest trust in the expertise of this team for many years.

Significant names

One of their most prominent pieces of work is the relaunch of the brand for the airline icon Lufthansa, with its premium positioning in all points of contact through which the brand has become palpable, a veritable household word. Martin et Karczinski has accompanied Lufthansa and the Lufthansa Group for more than ten years with counsel on strategy, designing excellence and all-encompassing implementation.

Martin et Karczinski has been a contributing factor to the international success of the lighting manufacturer Occhio for more than 22 years. The close collaboration extending from the original generation of its iconic name to the positioning of it as a luxury brand has enabled impressive campaigns to be generated. In that vein, Hollywood star Mads Mikkelsen was for many years the brand communicator in ads and video clips, bringing the culture of lighting to new and ever higher levels. At the salone del Mobile Milano, the Villa Necchi, shooting location of the high fashion biopic “House of Gucci”, became the place for immersive branding experiences and exclusive events.

The be.yond wall in the academy impressively presents the holistic system of the be.yond method. © Martin et Karczinski

The historic brand Leica is being worked on currently by Martin et Karczinski with a target date of its anniversary year in 2025. That means 100 years which have made their imprint on photography and contemporary history in documentaries as well as our general perceptions of the world around us by Leica. This success story, which is winning accolades from ever higher numbers of Leica enthusiasts, is being perpetrated for the future.

Premium in the sky: The Lufthansa livery after the brand relaunch © Lufthansa

Creating conscious growth

Martin et Karczinski has adopted the plan of building a new level of consciousness in the economy. Thereby the company is positioning itself to accompany and help form “conscious growth” at its best. Out of this original inspiration, Peter Martin subsequently created the “be.yond academy” in order to transform the idea effectively and turn it to reality. The “be.yond method” for organisations and brands, as well as for personal individual development, was developed by Martin himself. It can be studied in two courses, each culminating in a certificate of accomplishment.

Mads Mikkelsen and Sofia Boutella in the iconic Occhio campaign “The Charm” © Mierswa Kluska

The “be.yond talks” by Martin et Karczinski are a highly desired platform for thought leadership and high calibre networking. At exclusive events in Munich, a very special kind of energy is born and emanated which in turn makes exemplary change in the exterior world possible. The line-up of speakers is itself imposing: Peter Martin has already been able to engage Dr. Peter H. Goetz (Gaggenau), Torsten Müller-Ötvös (formerly of Rolls Royce Motor Cars), Sophia Rödiger (1KOMMA5°), Benno Zerlin (Occhio), Olivier Krüger (Lufthansa Group), Eduard R. Dörrenberg (Dr. Wolff Group) and Boris Dolkhani (Robert Bosch GmbH) among others for the speaker’s podium.

From left to right: COO Stefan Mauerer, Founder and CEO Peter Martin, CCO Alexander Beutel © Kilian Bishop