The continuous management of a manufacturing company's product portfolio is a key aspect ofsuccessful product development. Managers determine when and which products should be updated orterminated. This process influences inhouse Industrial design teams, thus prompting a range ofdevelopment strategies they might deploy. In product portfolio management there is a tension betweenstandardisation and customisation. From a marketing perspective this is may be addressed through brandDNA, from engineering through modularization. The design perspective (merging those two) has beenill-explored, particularly from professional designers. Previously we proposed a theoretical modeldescribing different industrial design projects and how they influence industrial designers strategicthinking. It was developed through literature reviews and examples found in manufacturing industry.Through a multi-case interview study with 16 participants from five manufacturing companies withstrong brands, this article aims to empirically evaluate the proposed model. The results show that therespondents could describe all but one industrial design projects, the cause maybe that they had not beenexposed to saving a company by doing a total makeover.