With the same product, good identity allows for higher pricing.

There are two coffee shops next to each other. The same source of beans, the same machine, the same rental price. One shop sells a cup for 45,000 VND, the other sells it for 75,000 VND. Customers line up at the 75,000 VND shop. This is not about the coffee beans. This is about what the eyes process before the mouth tastes.

Perception occurs before tasting

Research by Lindgaard et al., published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology in 2006, shows that the human brain forms visual judgments within 50 milliseconds. That is the time before customers are aware of what they are looking at. In the F&B industry, this means: paper cups, bottle labels, menu boards, and the colors of the bar counter have done most of the convincing work before the staff even greet the customers.

This is a concrete economic mechanism, not just a psychological feeling. When an identity is consistent and deliberate, the customer's brain pairs it with a signal: whoever made this cares about every detail. From there, the customer infers that the product inside is crafted with the same care. A higher price then becomes reasonable, and no one needs to explain it.

Purposeful differentiation, not differentiation for fun.

Many F&B brands confuse “looking different” with “meaningfully different.” A strange neon color, a curly typeface, a hand-drawn logo: all of these can look different and still say nothing. Customers look, don't understand, and walk on.

Purposeful differentiation means every visual choice clearly reflects a stance on segment and commitment. A coffee brand chooses earth tones, origin photography from the growing region, and recycled packaging. Those choices speak to people willing to pay more for transparency. A milk tea brand chooses bright colors, sharp typography, and packaging made for photos. Those choices speak to social media users and their friends.

A brand is not a logo. A brand is the perception in the customer's gut about a product, service, or company.

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap

When identity speaks the right language of the target segment, higher prices do not need to be defended. They are received as a natural consequence of a choice that has been clarified.

The value signals that customers cannot articulate.

F&B customers don't sit down and analyze a logo before ordering. But their brains are processing constantly: is this cup thick or thin, is the label crisp or blurry, are the colors consistent or patched together, is the type readable or merely decorative. Each small signal adds to an invisible profile in the customer's mind: worth the money, or not.

This is why brands like Starbucks, Gong Cha and Phúc Long price higher than comparable products at the market. Their whole system of signals, from color to packaging to staff uniforms, keeps confirming one consistent commitment, and it isn't just about a bigger cup. Customers don't put this into words. They simply feel it's a place worth spending money.

When identity erodes pricing power.

The reverse is also true, and it often hurts more. A good product with a cheap-looking identity gets priced by the identity, not by its real quality. Customers see blurry packaging, a crooked logo, colors that shift between touchpoints. Their brain concludes at once that this brand doesn't invest, so the product inside probably doesn't either. Even if it tastes better, they still haggle or go elsewhere.

Vietnam's F&B sector saw more than 50,000 venues close in the first half of 2025, according to iPOS × Nestlé data. Many of them had decent products. What they lacked was a system of signals strong enough to make customers stop, choose them over the neighbor, and come back next time.

Identity erodes pricing power in many ways. Sometimes it is obvious: outdated packaging while competitors have refreshed theirs. Other times it is subtle: social media images that do not match the in-store experience, leading to misaligned expectations and customer disappointment from the first visit.

Consistent identity is an accumulation mechanism, not a one-off project

In How Brands Grow, Byron Sharp points out that distinctive brand assets (recognizable elements such as color, shape and sound) only create value when they are repeated consistently over time. Each time a customer meets a familiar signal, the connection in their brain between that signal and your brand is reinforced. This is how memory works.

In day-to-day F&B operations, this means the color on the paper cup must match the color on the signage. It must also match the color in social media posts and on the printed menu. If every channel does its own thing, because there is no master identity set or because printing happens at several workshops with no color standard, the brand accumulates nothing, even though customers see it every day.

This is also why the cost of a thorough brand identity is the cost of building identity infrastructure, so every later touchpoint works properly, and not just a one-off design fee. An F&B brand that expands into a chain without this infrastructure will find that every new location burns budget on starting over.

Practical question: what is your system communicating?

You don’t need to hire an expert to ask this question. Stand in front of the store or hold the product and look at it as a first-time customer. Ask: if a stranger looks at this for three seconds, what segment would they place it in, and how much would they be willing to pay?

If the answer comes in below the price you want to charge, that gap lies in the identity, not in demanding customers. It's the gap between what your identity is saying and what you want to be priced at. Closing this gap is the job of brand design, not of promotions or ads.

A high price needs no justification when the whole system of signals has been speaking consistently to the right people. At that point, 75,000 VND a cup is self-evident, and no one needs further explanation.