Dakao is a specialty coffee brand built around a chef’s approach to flavour, bringing Vietnamese and Southeast Asian coffee into a contemporary U.S. context.
Its range goes beyond a single origin story, with blends and varietals designed around flavour, balance and the way people actually enjoy coffee.
That gave the brand something genuinely different to work with but also something that needed to be made immediately understandable to an audience already surrounded by coffee choices.
Our work with Dakao began ahead of its U.S. launch and evolved alongside the business.
What started as launch content grew into multiple rounds of creative production, moving from early brand introduction into a more refined ritual, then toward lifestyle-led social content, Amazon store design and paid ad creative.
Rather than treating each phase as a separate campaign, the work gradually built a broader brand world around how Dakao could be experienced, understood and shopped.
RiseHub helped shape how Dakao should enter the market and how that direction could carry across content, social, e-commerce and advertising.
We worked across strategy, creative direction and production, translating the product, the founder’s chef background and the brand idea into a customer-facing experience.
Our role was not simply to make the coffee look premium. It was to make what made Dakao different feel relevant to the people it wanted to reach.
How do you make an unfamiliar coffee proposition matter in a market already full of good coffee?
Dakao was entering a crowded U.S. category with a distinctive product and a story that much of its audience would not immediately recognise.
Explaining every origin, varietal and cultural reference risked making the brand feel educational before it felt desirable. The challenge was to make the difference felt first without over-explaining it.
Put the customer at the centre, and let the chef’s point of view shape the experience.
Instead of leading with what made Dakao technically different, we built the work around “A taste you’ve been missing”, shifting the focus from the product story to what discovering it could feel like for the customer.
The founder’s chef background gave us a distinctive lens for everything from flavour and ritual to composition and visual detail, helping Dakao avoid the familiar language of either traditional Vietnamese coffee or generic specialty coffee.
As the business evolved, the creative direction evolved with it, from launch storytelling to more lived-in, social and shoppable expressions of the brand.
A brand world that could grow with the business, not just launch it. Across multiple phases, the work moved Dakao from an introduction to a more complete customer experience, spanning brand storytelling, lifestyle content, social creative, Amazon and paid advertising.
The result was a clearer, more distinctive way for people to encounter the brand across different touchpoints, while keeping the same chef-led point of view at the centre.
Brand Manager + Producer: Ha Phan
Creative Director: Dinh To Uyen
Videographer + Photographer: An Nguyen
Editor: An Nguyen
Designer: Ha Phan
Social Media Manager: Thanh Truc
Project Assistant: Le To Uyen
“I trust your expertise and I like getting your quick feedback even if its not yet the solution. It’s reassuring that the work is still progressing. That kind of effective communication should be standard, but it’s something I rarely experience when working with people here in Vietnam.”
“Hà & the RiseHub team understood our ideas and executed them excellently. They’re a very talented team.”
“Our restaurant is way more successful than we can imagine. You made our idea came to life. We chose you because of your passion for what you do and we’re happy that we made the right decision.”
“The RiseHub team is energised, passionate and very creative. It was inspiring. I loved working with you guys, some of my best Vietnam memories….and we made something very cool :)”
“I chose RiseHub because you guys are awesome, duh! I obviously already knew you and your work ethic which I admire. But secondly I also wanted to work with a team that has experience in both western and Vietnamese marketing approaches.”
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