What a house of brands is, and why we chose it

A house of brands is one company that owns several brands, each standing on its own on the shelf with its own name, colour and voice. Color of Vietnam chose this model because our four ranges serve four different people and four different eating occasions, and a single shared name would not speak truthfully to all of them. This piece explains the model, why we picked it, and what it costs a small team.

What the term means

There are two common ways to organise brands inside a food company:

• Branded house: every product carries the company name. Shoppers remember one name and the company maintains one identity.
• House of brands: the company stays in the background while each brand faces the shopper. The parent name appears small, usually on the back or in a corner of the pack.

We follow the second approach. On the shelf you see PLAY Nutrition, PLAY Protein Bar, Natural & Healthy or Let's PLAY. The stamp A brand of Color of Vietnam sits in a corner, enough for a buyer to know who is responsible, without taking the brand's place.

Why we chose it

The first reason is the person eating. An energy bar for a morning run, a 45 g protein bar, a 25 g cashew bar and a jar of Cheese Ball that a family plays Ô ăn quan with cannot share one voice. Forced under one name, that name would speak vaguely to everyone and accurately to no one.

The second reason is the buyer. Distributors and importers do not buy a company; they buy ranges. A convenience chain may only want Let's PLAY rice crackers. A sports nutrition importer may only ask about PLAY Protein Bar. When each brand stands alone, each conversation is simpler too.

The third reason is risk. When one brand needs a recipe change, new packaging or a paused flavour, the other three are not dragged along.

The last reason is export. We have not announced a market yet, but we already know that different markets will suit different brands. A house of brands lets us go one brand at a time instead of carrying the whole catalogue everywhere at once.

What four brands cost a small team

The model is not free. Four brands mean:

• Four identities to keep consistent: logo, colour, type, photography.
• Four writing voices. The person writing a Let's PLAY bag in the morning and a PLAY Protein Bar box in the afternoon has to switch completely.
• Four awareness efforts. A buyer who knows PLAY Nutrition does not automatically know Natural & Healthy.
• Four packaging print schedules, four photo sets, four pages on the website.

With a team of a few people in Hanoi, the only way to carry this is a clear split of levels. Recipes, product standards, quality control, certificates and the way we work with the partner facility sit at company level and are shared by all four brands. A brand keeps only what the shopper sees: name, colour, tone and occasion. So when an importer asks about the facility's ISO 22000 or Halal certification, we have one document set, not four.

What a working week looks like

A recent example: in the same week we reviewed packaging copy for the Let's PLAY seaweed rice cracker bag and for the PLAY Protein Bar peanut butter box. The Let's PLAY text is short, playful and invites sharing, with a nod to the Ô ăn quan board on the jars from the same brand. The PLAY Protein Bar text is direct: 45 g per bar, twelve per box, ingredients and storage. Same writer, two very different voices. What both versions have in common is the checking step. Every line is compared with the recipe, the pack specification and the supporting records before it goes to print, and the A brand of Color of Vietnam stamp goes in its agreed position.

To keep the voices apart, each brand has a one page note: who it talks to, on which occasion, which words it uses and which it avoids. We reread that page before writing anything for the brand.

What this means for you

If you are a candidate, working at Color of Vietnam means changing voice several times a day while holding one standard for truth. You will learn to write light for Let's PLAY and plain for PLAY Protein Bar, then ask whether both versions match the food inside.

If you are a partner, you can start with one brand. The facility records, certificates and ways of working belong to the whole company, so moving on to a second brand does not mean starting again.

We are hiring for Fresher Product R&D and a Marketing Leader in Hanoi; details are on the Careers page. If you would like to discuss one brand for your channel, send us a message through the Contact page.