It’s no secret that I’m a Porsche fan, so I’m particularly intrigued by the latest 911 release: A GT3 Cabriolet from the GT Motorsport division, reserved for the precious few. Die-hard Porsche fans are somewhat unimpressed.
You're probably wondering what this has to do with consumer goods brands...
In the rush to launch what's next, many brands overlook what’s already in their hands – their existing portfolio – when it must be the most powerful and underutilised tool for driving growth.
The catch 22, it's hard to see the wood for the trees when you’ve spent so long staring at the same consumer goods category. The same competition, the same shelf, and that’s why it’s good to take a step back and look left-field for inspiration.
For me, Porsche’s approach offers five exemplary lessons that consumer goods brands can use to deliver growth...
1. Know your icon, expand from it faithfully
Arguably the world’s most iconic sports car, even my 8-year-old daughter can recognise the Porsche 911. At the heart of the brand for 62 years, it continues to drive growth, and every model since is there because of it. The Cayenne met the changing needs of families looking for SUVs, and the Taycan was introduced as the world’s greatest EV sports saloon. Porsche has succeeded in finding and filling product gaps, each with its own unique product proposition.
The risk in any portfolio expansion is that you stretch the brand so far it snaps, losing all sense of relevance (looking at you, Colgate Lasagne) and diluting what made the brand worth expanding in the first place. To tap into new users, occasions, and needs, extending your core equities to drive relevance.
What is your icon: a product, a format, an idea that everything else should feel connected to? When you launch something new, can you draw a clear line back to it? Does it make sense to enough people to make it a viable extension?
2. Give every range a clear job
Porsche structures its product portfolio around distinct roles with distinct audiences; what they want from a vehicle, and how it expresses their personality. The 911 anchors brand equity, the 718 is the sports cars entry point, the Cayenne and Macan target families and drive volume, the GT motorsport-derived vehicles signal peak performance for those that love the thrill of the drive. Every product is meticulously considered and mulled over within an inch of its life.
Challenges in the range almost always starts with confusion about purpose, but when each range has a defined role — recruit, retain, or trade up — pricing and margin follow naturally.
Does every range in your portfolio have a clear job and audience? If you can't articulate what a range does for your brand, it's probably doing very little for the consumer.
3. Treat your portfolio as a journey
To be allocated a GT sports car (the most desirable, performance-focused of the range), you must have bought other Porsches and built a relationship with the dealer. Same with Rolex watches. Products that sell in small numbers must justify the desirability – and the pricing – of everything below them.
Premiumisation is a strategy for many brands, where there's always something to aspire to and always a reason to explore further. Each tier pulls consumers forward rather than holding them in place, and shoppers are more open to exploring innovation from a trusted brand. The lesson here? Leverage the equity to exploit the opportunity.
Does your portfolio give consumers a reason to move across occasions, formats, or tiers? Or does it keep people anchored in one corner, with no natural path to explore the rest of what you offer? Can you drive considerably more value from your portfolio with a clear premiumisation strategy?
4. Manufacture desire, deliberately
Limited editions at Porsche don't just generate short-term buzz; they actively shape the long-term desirability of the brand. Its GT cars, for example, are allocated to select customers who demonstrate loyalty to the brand over time. At Porsche, managed scarcity is a deliberate strategic choice.
This can feel counterintuitive in CPG, where availability is everything. But even in low-interest categories, engineered scarcity and cultural hype can create high-involvement moments — and those moments cast a halo across the entire portfolio.
Brewdog, Liquid Death and Feastables have all tapped into popular culture and created high-involvement moments. Our client partners at Sneak use monthly themed product drops to their tribe, generating excitement across the core brand.
Where in your portfolio is there room for a moment of real excitement? How could you use limited editions or special launches to make consumers feel something about your brand, and carry that energy back into the everyday range?
5. Use timing as a lever, not an afterthought
When you launch matters just as much as what you launch, and Porsche doesn't follow a typical automotive sales cycle. Rather than waiting for a regular relaunch of ranges to drive interest, Porsche drops new derivatives — a Targa here, a Dakar there — at precisely the right moments to re-energise the range and pull people back in. This keeps it fresh and leverages as much from one portfolio as possible without total reinvention.
This is often overlooked as a dimension of portfolio strategy in CPG. The instinct tends to ask, "what's next?" when the more powerful question might just be, "why now?".
Does your launch calendar reflect a deliberate rhythm, or is it driven by production cycles and retailer windows? What would it look like to time your portfolio moves around moments of maximum cultural or consumer relevance?
Driving growth for a CPG brand?
If you’re too busy to even begin thinking about how to drive growth for your consumer goods brand portfolio, get in touch. We’d love to offer a second opinion or help shape your thinking — as we’ve said, it’s often hard to see the wood for the trees when you are knee-deep in the trenches.
Send me an email if you’d like an informal chat.
