Influx

When Porsche brings out a radical concept, the Panamera, a 4 seater sedan, you kind of expect it to remain a Porsche, but just like the Cayenne SUV, it’s still basically a VW.

VW group has plans to extend the new Porsche platform to its other brands Bentley, Audi, Bugatti and perhaps even Lamborghini.

Obviously, the cost of development is so high that these platforms have to be shared for the economics to work, but the danger here is that the uniqueness of brands is getting lost in an accounting process.

However, as a counter argument, shared platforms means that the marketing folks, designers and engineers at the individual brands have to work doubly hard to put brand meaning to do whatever they can to make their models stand out.

Posted by Ed Cotton