In conservation, culling helps control deer numbers to prevent overpopulation. It’s well known that this prevents damage to natural and agricultural environments. What’s less appreciated, is that by selectively removing bucks with inferior antlers, the remaining population can develop better antler quality.
It’s a short mental leap to the CPG market, where brands that have over-proliferated their ranges must refine and polish, in order to pour their resources into the best-performing products, so they can thrive.
As portfolios expand – driven by acquisitions, new product lines, and brand extensions – the result can often be a brand ecosystem that’s bloated and directionless. For FMCG brands, managing a clear, effective portfolio is critical to maintaining strong consumer connections and market share. But what happens when your brand portfolio has sprawled out of control?
In a world where consumer choice overload can prove debilitating, many companies are shedding smaller, underperforming brands and focusing on fewer, stronger global brands. This also creates operational and cost efficiency as streamlining helps simplify operations and reduce complexity, allowing brands to become more agile in responding to market changes.
Spread too thinly
At Unilever, the portfolio has been significantly weeded in recent years to make room for focus on higher-growth brands. Using a data-driven AI tool that provides both a holistic and granular assessment of its portfolio, Unilever has delisted low-performing products to focus more on its core SKUs, develop new products in response to changing consumer needs, and create tailored plans for retailers.
Love it or hate it, Marmite has also recently fallen foul of brand proliferation, having tried to spread itself too thinly with Marmite peanut butter. The brand offshoot which it said at launch was “carefully crafted by the clever boffins in our Marmite lab to appeal to both Marmite fans and peanut butter lovers,” was axed in September after sales dipped by 21% in 2023.
And it’s not alone. Over time, many FMCG-makers have suffered after popping out constant variations, which often caused confusion and failed to drive repeat purchase. Similar stories can be told about General Mills, P&G, and Coca-Cola, which famously canned 200 underperforming beverage brands in 2020, including Diet Coke Lime and Cherry Coke.
Extending the brand purely to protect shelf space means the consumer is confronted by a scary and unnecessary line-up of choices, and panic-buys whichever is cheapest, or simply walks away. Long-term relationship and brand loyalty also become casualties of range proliferation.
It’s important to cut through the clutter and create a more intuitive portfolio, where each brand complements the others, rather than competing for attention. Managing a large and complex portfolio can be overwhelming, but by carefully analysing what is there, aligning with the brand’s core identity, and streamlining brand architecture, an unruly portfolio can be culled and pruned into a focused, powerful herd which produces the strongest brands in the ecosystem.
Navigating a Strategic Brand Cull: Key Considerations
1. Perform a brand audit: know what you have
Audit the current brand portfolio; analyse performance metrics, market positioning, and consumer perceptions. Are products or sub-brands cannibalising each other? Which are lagging behind in terms of sales? Are there multiple brands within your portfolio that are vying for the same customer with the same value proposition? Identify conflicts, then prune the portfolio, by ensuring each brand or product has a distinct purpose and identity.
2. Define core identity and purpose
Return to the roots of what your brand stands for and what it’s trying to achieve. What’s your unique value proposition? What do your consumers truly need from you, and which products best deliver that value? Determine which products are serving that mission—and which aren’t. Keep the products that align with your brand’s purpose and contribute meaningfully to the overall portfolio, and discard or phase out those that don’t. A strong core purpose will also guide future innovation.
3. Streamline brand architecture
Set out how each product or sub-brand fits into the larger structure. Common approaches to brand architecture include the house of brands, where each brand stands with its own identity (e.g. P&G); the branded house, where the parent brand dominates and products fall under a unified umbrella (e.g. Apple); and hybrid, a mix of the two (e.g. Colgate). For FMCG, a hybrid model is often most effective, allowing both autonomy and synergy. Each sub-brand or product line should have a clear, defined role within the architecture, eliminating consumer confusion and avoiding brand dilution.
4. Focus on simplification and clarity
Overcomplicating the offering can lead to decision fatigue, where consumers struggle to differentiate between similar products and end up walking away. Ensure that packaging, marketing, and product positioning all reflect a simplified, coherent strategy. A more focused portfolio also makes it easier to highlight your hero products – those that generate the most revenue or are most aligned with your brand identity. These should take centre stage in your marketing efforts, while other products play supporting roles.
