Creating and Managing Brand Portfolios: Balancing Strategy, Scale, and Storytelling

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, companies rarely rely on a single brand to carry their ambitions. Instead, they build brand portfolios—carefully structured collections of brands, sub-brands, and extensions—each designed to serve distinct customer needs, price points, and aspirations. When done well, brand portfolios can maximise reach, protect profitability, and enhance long-term resilience. Done poorly, they can confuse customers, drain resources, and even cause brands within the same company to cannibalise each other.

What Exactly is a Brand Portfolio?

A brand portfolio is the universe of brands owned and managed by an organisation. It might include global icons, regional favourites, niche players, and experimental offshoots—all serving different roles but ideally working together to grow the business.

Think of Nestlé: over 2,000 brands worldwide, from mass-market Maggi noodles to premium San Pellegrino water. Or closer home, Tata Consumer Products, which houses Tata Tea, Tetley, Himalayan Water, and Soulfull—each addressing different audiences while building the group’s overall market strength.

The key is balance: broad enough to capture diverse opportunities, yet focused enough to avoid overlap.

Steps to Build and Manage a Strong Brand Portfolio

1. Define a Clear Strategy

Every brand needs a purpose. Which customer segment does it serve? At what price point? What gap in the market does it fill?

• Example: HUL (Hindustan Unilever) avoids overlap by positioning Lux as glamorous, Dove as nourishing, and Lifebuoy as health-oriented—ensuring each soap brand serves a distinct audience.

2. Assign Roles to Each Brand

Not all brands are equal. Some lead, others support.

• Power Brands: Core revenue drivers (e.g., Coca-Cola or Surf Excel in India).
• Supporting Brands: Fill niches or enhance the halo of power brands.
• Fighter Brands: Compete at lower price points, like Toyota’s Etios or HUL’s Wheel.
• Prestige Brands: Elevate image, like Marriott’s Ritz-Carlton or ITC’s Fiama.

3. Optimise Size and Structure

Too many brands can dilute focus. Companies regularly prune, merge, or reposition underperformers.

• Example: Coca-Cola eliminated over 200 “zombie brands” in 2020 to focus on its winners, including Coke, Fanta, and Minute Maid.

4. Differentiate Through Positioning

Each brand must own its unique promise. Confusion is fatal.

• Example: Maruti Suzuki balances Alto for affordability, Swift for style, and Nexa outlets for premium aspirations—same company, but each positioned differently.

5. Balance Consistency and Flexibility

Markets change. Portfolios must evolve without losing coherence.

• Example: Marriott International manages properties ranging from Ritz-Carlton (luxury) to Fairfield (budget), maintaining consistency in service quality while catering flexibly to different travel segments.

The Power—and Risk—of Brand Extensions

Many firms utilise their existing brand equity to expand into new categories.

• Success stories:
  • P&G’s Tide, once a single detergent, now spans 60+ cleaning products.
  • Apple, once “just” a computer brand, now dominates across phones, wearables, services, and content.
  • Amul in India extended from butter into milk, cheese, chocolates, and ice creams—strengthening its “Taste of India” positioning.
• Spectacular failures:
  • Colgate Dinner Entrees (toothpaste brand as food? No thanks).
  • Harley-Davidson Perfume, which clashed with its rugged biker identity.
  • Cadbury Instant Mashed Potatoes, far from the chocolate comfort customers expected.

The lesson: extensions must feel natural to the customer’s perception of the brand. A Harley jacket makes sense. A Harley cologne doesn’t.

Key Considerations in Portfolio Decisions

When managing multiple brands, companies must weigh both supply-side and demand-side factors:

• Supply-side synergies: Shared R&D, distribution, or marketing (e.g., Tata leveraging its retail network for multiple FMCG brands).
• Demand-side synergies: Customer trust, loyalty, and shopping habits.

The key decision is whether to operate as a corporate brand (everything under one name, such as Infosys or IBM) or a house of brands (different names for different products, like P&G or HUL).

The Role of Customer Perception

Ultimately, the customer decides if a portfolio makes sense. Products that align with their goals and lifestyle can coexist under the same brand umbrella. If not, confusion or rejection follows.

• Example: Harley-Davidson hotels are successful because travel and camaraderie align with the brand’s culture. Harley-Davidson perfumes didn’t work because they had no meaningful connection to the biker lifestyle.
• Example: Dabur extends from honey to chyawanprash to juices, all tied together by Ayurveda and natural health. That narrative helps customers accept new products as part of the same brand family.

Challenges in Managing Portfolios

• Cannibalisation: When two in-house brands fight for the same customer (e.g., PepsiCo balancing Pepsi and Mountain Dew in youth markets).
• Resource Allocation: Tough calls on which brand deserves more investment.
• Dilution: Too many weak extensions weaken the parent.
• Market Shifts: Consumer habits, digitisation, and sustainability trends demand constant recalibration.

Best Practices

• Conduct regular brand portfolio audits to spot overlaps and gaps.
• Develop a portfolio roadmap linked to business priorities.
• Empower leadership (CMO or equivalent) to make portfolio-level decisions.
• Stay grounded in customer insight—because at the end of the day, portfolios succeed only when they make sense to the people buying.

Conclusion

Managing a brand portfolio is as much about discipline as it is about imagination. It requires the courage to prune, the wisdom to differentiate, and the foresight to adapt. From Coca-Cola to Tata, Marriott to Nestlé, the best portfolios tell a story where each brand plays its part without stepping on another’s toes.

When orchestrated well, a portfolio is more than the sum of its parts—it becomes a strategic superpower that drives growth, protects relevance, and ensures a company remains woven into the lives of diverse customers across categories and generations.