Pack Roles & Portfolio Strategy
Assign strategic roles to every pack in the portfolio. Each SKU needs a clear job
The Entry pack has an RSP/kg index of 120, the Upsize pack sits at 70. Every role carries a target number.
A leading packaged‑goods manufacturer assigns every pack in its portfolio one of four core strategic roles (Entry, Routine, Upsize, and Upscale), each with specific pricing, promotion, and margin guardrails. The Entry pack (2 servings, Retail Selling Price (RSP) per kg index about 120, low promo intensity, Everyday Low Price (EDLP) execution) recruits budget‑conscious shoppers. The Routine pack (4 servings, index 100, high promo intensity) drives frequency. The Upsize pack (6‑8 servings, index 70‑85, medium promo) drives weight of purchase. And the Upscale pack (index above 120, no deep deals) drives price per kg. When roles are unclear, you end up with six Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) all doing the same job.
The four core pack roles: Entry (recruit new buyers), Routine (drive repeat purchase), Upsize (drive weight of purchase), Upscale (capture premium occasions). Each serves a different strategic job.
The Four Core Pack Roles: Entry, Routine, Upsize, Upscale
The pack roles framework assigns each pack a clear job defined by consumer target, shopper profile, pack size, pricing index, and execution strategy. Entry packs (RSP/kg index about 120, EDLP, low promo) recruit budget-conscious shoppers. Routine packs (index 100, Hi-Lo, high promo) are the volume workhorse. Upsize packs (index 70-85) drive weight of purchase. Upscale packs (index above 120, no deep deals) deliver the highest gross profit per kg.
Role assignment flows from the Category-Position Grid. In developed categories where you lead, prioritize Upsize and Upscale. In developing categories where you lag, prioritize Entry and Routine. Assigning a role allocates pricing, shelf space, trade spend, and innovation investment in one decision.
Master these portfolio strategy concepts before exploring the simulator
19 conceptsEvery pack needs a job. The four roles are Entry (recruit new buyers), Routine (the volume baseline at index 100), Upsize (reward weight‑of‑purchase), and Upscale (premiumize). A pack with no clear role is clutter, and it steals volume from the packs that do have one.
Coverage and concentration are two different failures. Coverage below 100% means a role sits empty and a rival can own it. Concentration above 50% means two or more packs are fighting for the same shopper. A range can be fully covered and still over‑concentrated, so always read both numbers together.
The role names stay just labels until you price them per kilo. Entry sits around index 120, Routine anchors at 100, Upsize drops to 70 to 85, and Upscale runs above 120. The absolute shelf price can still be lowest on the Entry pack, because small packs cost more per gram to make and package.
Two packs sharing the same role at the same price per kilo split the same shoppers between them instead of adding reach. Fixing that overlap takes a real difference the shopper can feel: a different occasion, a different channel, or a genuinely different size and price step.
Get the roles and their price steps right and the portfolio starts doing the selling for you. The Upsize pack pulls loyal buyers into bigger baskets, the Upscale pack lifts your average price per kilo, and the Entry pack keeps the brand within reach of the next new shopper. Each role sets up the next, which is what turns six SKUs into one system.
- Purpose
- Assign one of the four core pack roles (Entry, Routine, Upsize, Upscale) to each SKU and see whether the portfolio covers every job or clusters into cannibalization.
- How to use
- Pick a role from each SKU's dropdown. Start with Routine for the 200g baseline at index 100, then slot the others using RSP/kg indices: Entry about 120, Upsize about 70 to 85, Upscale above 120.
- What to watch
- Coverage at 100% means every role is filled; concentration above 50% means two or more packs are fighting for the same shopper. Read the two numbers together and fix both.
Simulator
Assign a strategic role to each pack. Watch how your portfolio coverage score, role balance, and margin profile change as you give each SKU a clear job.
Keep it hypothetical or generic. No confidential figures, no company data: a made-up scenario teaches the same lesson. When you click Analyze, the AI reads this context together with your current sandbox settings.
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Assigning Pack Roles for a Yogurt Multipack Portfolio
You are the pack strategy lead at a chilled-dairy manufacturer, responsible for the yogurt multipack portfolio. The range is built on 125g pots: a 4-pack (500g), an 8-pack (1000g), a 12-pack (1500g), and a premium 4-pack (600g, larger pots). Each pack needs a clear role (Entry, Routine, Upsize, or Upscale) with a corresponding pricing index, promotion intensity, and target shopper. Recent data shows unit share running 8-pack 55%, 12-pack 26%, 4-pack 12%, and premium 4-pack 7% (the premium 4-pack plays the Upscale role at low volume but high margin per pot).
The 8-pack (1000g, $3.60, 55% unit share) is the highest-volume Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU) with the baseline Retail Selling Price (RSP) per kg index of 100. Which pack role does this represent?
You Assigned the Roles. Now Make the Price/kg Curve Connect Them.
This lesson assigned a strategic job to every pack: Entry recruits budget-conscious shoppers at an affordable absolute price (RSP/kg index about 120 because small-pack economics raise per-kg cost). Routine anchors the architecture at index 100 and runs Hi-Lo to drive frequency. Upsize rewards weight-of-purchase shoppers with index 70-85 (15-30% per-kg discount). Upscale captures premium occasions at index above 120 with no deep deals. You also met two guardrails: the Net Incrementality gate above 60% that stops portfolio bloat, and the New-Pack Gate that tests every proposed SKU against role gap, occasion, incrementality, and Triple Win.
Role assignment alone cannot guarantee that the RSP/kg gaps between the roles actually drive the trade-up behavior the framework predicts. A portfolio with all four roles filled but with the Upsize pack accidentally priced at RSP/kg index 95 (instead of 70-85) has a complete architecture on paper and a broken incentive in reality. The Pricing Lesson 8 Zone of Indifference (a band of about plus or minus 5 percent) tells you why: the consumer cannot perceive a 5% gap as a meaningful trade-up, so the Upsize pack stops earning weight-of-purchase volume and becomes a margin drag. The fix is to engineer the per-kg ladder, not the role label.
That ladder is the Incentive Curve: RSP/kg plotted against pack weight, with the Routine pack as anchor. A healthy curve slopes downwardfrom small to large. The bigger the pack, the lower the per-kg price. A broken curve has upward kinks (the inverted per-kg ladder you diagnose in Q8 of this challenge). The Incentive Curve is the single most diagnostic tool for catching architecture failures before they hit the P&L. That is next.
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