How Porsche integrates its brand DNA into every experience

I’m not a car enthusiast as anyone seeing me arrive in my beat up, 10 year old Hyundai will attest to. 

Nonetheless, I’m currently doing an “all things car“ trip through Germany with my 19 year old son, on the way to see the F1 in Belgium #bestlife. I am learning a lot.

Cars are great demonstrations of the concepts of branding, positioning and human insight. I use them  as examples whenever I talk about positioning and why emotional / symbolic needs are the heartbeat of brands.

Cars for some reason strongly activate human emotions like status, safety, adventure, self-actualisation. They are not, for the most part, about getting from A to B. If it was, us city drivers would all be driving smart cars that can fit into tiny car spaces - not Mercs that ooze weath, Land Rovers that never leave a suburban road or BMWs that look a lot like a cry for attention. 

Of course, there are rational considerations - size, functionality, cost. But cars speak to us at an emotional level, say something about us even if we don’t care, and - like many things - are decided on by the feels more than the brain.

Understanding your brand DNA is central to long term success. It sets the guardrails for design. Or better put, the playground for the imagination. Building on who you are, and why you are it, are important factors that keep the mental real-estate you occupy in a customers head unoccupied by others.

Because this is what a brand is - the place you occupy in the heads of your target market. Built through time, consistency and commitment. Built through knowing who you are, and why you exist, and where that aligns with human needs. All activated by your distinctive assets, of course.

History plays a key part in brand DNA. Grounding your brand in where you come from gives it gravitas, longevity and context. In European cars, history runs deep. How they grapple with the EV revolution, the changing nature of transport (although not human desire), and how EV car manufacturers (out of Asia) build brands that move beyond rational to differentiate from each other and deliver on emotional / symbolic needs is a future worth watching.

In the meantime, we can still learn a lot from Porsche.

A Porsche is not a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or a McLaren. It’s certainly not a BMW, even though there are versions of this brand which could fit into the racing (rather than performance) category. Racing cars are, according to my son, different to performance cars. This is definitely a case of IYKYK, which I do not. 

But even to me, having “kept to the left” around the Porsche museum, a Porsche feels like something different. A car for car lovers. A classic car, with racing stripes. A car that was built for people ("the volk" in Volkswagen) who wanted to drive them - race them, in fact. Not to show off, but for the love of cars, engines, speed and sound. Freedom, rather than showing off.

Wandering around the museum, you get a sense that this is a brand that knows itself, and takes pride in its place in car history, its origins and its future.

And nothing said that more to me than "keep to the left"

The whole Porsche museum is structured around staying left. In Europe, this makes no sense.

My son, who has his eyes on an old Porsche and a trip across Europe in it, fills in the gaps.

It is part of the heritage, the brand DNA of Porsche, dating back to its participation and domination in the 24 hours Le Mans. In the vintage “Le Mans Start” era, drivers had to run across the track, leap into the car, start it up, put it in gear and head off. Porsche designed the ignition to be on the left, so that drivers could start with their left hand and simultaneously put it into gear with their right, shaving precious seconds off their get away. Incidentally, although Porsche is the most successful manufacturer in Le Mans history, that was only after the running start was abandoned. Still, this left hand ignition is a key part of its story. Pun probably intended. 

In actual fact, it's placement more likely has to do with the position of the engine (in the back), and the length of wiring - but the story is what sticks, and brands are stories. Stories we stick to and build on.

It's a little thing, putting left thinking into the design of the museum experience. But it shows a business that understands not just themselves, but their customer base.

People not in the target market probably don’t know or care. But those who love the brand - and this is a brand powered by passion - do. This is what it feels like to be somewhere that a brand is respected, even revered. 

I don’t want a Porsche. I'm a practical person who doesn't like speed too much. This is not a brand that speaks to me. But it is a brand that speaks clearly from its own authentic past. And that is something I understand.

Ironically, Ferdinand Porsche’s first car was electric. I wonder if they can tap into that heritage to find a place in the future?

Sharlene, July 2026