Brand Lock – Brand Control

Brand Lock (or Brand Control) is Vendion's mechanism to ensure a franchise chain looks and sounds the same everywhere. The chain owner centrally locks which visual and textual elements local restaurants cannot deviate from.

How it works

Same pattern as locked fields on menus, but for restaurant fields. Each restaurant has a list of locked fields that cannot be edited locally.

Activated only if "Brand control" is enabled in chain settings. On by default for type franchise.

Chain brand – centrally defined

At /chain/:slug/brand:

Lockable restaurant fields

"Save" updates locks for all member restaurants at once.

What local admin sees

In /admin/allmant: lock icon, "Locked by chain" tooltip, disabled input, top message: "Brand controlled by [chain name]".

Online order personality – AI control

Unique feature: the chain's AI settings are stored centrally:

• Personality – "professional", "casual", "playful"
• AI name – "Eva", "Bengt"
• Welcome greeting
• Custom instructions
• Show allergens / show images / idle timeout / upsell on/off
• Which of these are locked per restaurant

Fallback chain for AI settings

When guest opens /order/:slug:

1. Unit-specific settings (if set)
2. Chain's central settings (if active)
3. System default

Consistent AI voice across all units with no local config.

Example: Brand lock for new franchise

Alice just created "Burger Buffet Holding AB" with 3 units:

1. Goes to /chain/burger-holding/brand
2. Chain brand: Logo URL, color #E74C3C, font "Georgia", theme "dark"
3. Lock restaurant fields:
   • ✅ logo_url (all use chain logo)
   • ✅ brand_color (E74C3C everywhere)
   • ✅ brand_font
   • ❌ name (different cities: "Sthlm", "Malmö")
4. Online order personality:
   • Preset: "playful"
   • AI name: "Bea"
   • Greeting: "Hi and welcome to Burger Buffet! What'll it be? 🍔"
   • Locks greeting, preset, name
5. Save

Effect: all 3 restaurants identical visual experience; local admins see lock icons; guests meet same AI "Bea" in online order.

Can local admin change own name if name is unlocked?

Yes. Typical: location marker ("Sthlm", "Malmö", "Gothenburg") is locally controlled.

Brand lock off later

Turning off "Brand control" in chain settings:

• Chain brand page warns
• Locks on restaurants preserved (not auto-cleared)
• Future chain changes don't work

To fully free: explicitly clear the locks.

Brand assets

Today: URL you host yourself. Future: Vendion-hosted storage with versioning.

Language and regional variants

Doesn't support multi-language branding yet – all units get same logo/color. For sv/en variants: two separate chains or local image overrides.

SKV and Swedish fiscal law

Regardless of brand lock, each restaurant has own org number, own SKV registration, own fiscal log, own control box. Brand lock is visual only, not legal.

Next step: Chain Gift Cards – flows between units.