There is no doubt about it: the Porsche Panamera is a great looking Porsche! It has all the beautiful Porsche design details and it looks way more part of the family than the Cayenne.
The Panamera advertisement in the newspaper reads:
Until now, you had to choose between a four-door car and a sports car. With the Panamera, the contradictions and compromises end.
And that was the moment I realized something was wrong! I would have hoped Porsche would just remained to be that 2 seat super sports car! If you would be interested in a 4 seat sports car you would after all compromise for a Mercedes CLS class or something similar. With wife (or husband) next to you and kids on the back seat there is not going to be so much sports as there would have been with a 911 or Boxter that you would drive alone.
Porsche is / was(?) the symbol for sports cars: in my mind 2 seat sports cars. No “sports” SUVs or four-door “sports” cars. There are not many SUVs and four door cars on a race track, for a reason… it’s not really sporty… So, surely, Porsche will make some serious money with the Cayenne and Panamera but the downside is that the Porsche brand imagine has changed in a blimp. It has gone from those desirable high performance sports cars to well…. all kinds of cars with a sporty feel to it.
What do you think? Right or wrong line extension?
Right. Mercedes opened the category a couple of years with the CL and top executives that where tired of driving big limousines and station wagons because of the 4-door company policy flooded their show rooms – a new category was born.
As Porsche continues to expand their product lines they looked at it and asked themselves – is this new category a good it for what we are good at & can web credibly expand our product and brand into the category capturing the high end?
The answer to both question is yes. And the Panamera is a great example that they executed it, just like with the Porsche Cayenne flawlessly again. Their was the same risk when they extended the brand towards the off-road category a few years back. The results are stunning, as not many people know that today porsche sells more Cayenne’s then 911’s.
Porsche is definitely the Apple of the car industry and they will continue to expand their brand through un-compromised products that will capture the high-end in the existing and emerging car categories – next big opportunity: High-end electric!
It is a battle between a clear positioning in consumers mind versus product extensions. In case consumers keep associating Porsche with sports cars even though Porsche is doing SUVs and 4 door cars then it will work for Porsche. If not then Porsche is about to give up their unique positioning to somebody else very soon.
Worse of all, a changed positioning could conflict with other brands in the VW group: what is the difference between high end Audi’s and Porsche? It is not that clear anymore.