Like movie Easter eggs, brand voice works through repeated clues that make your brand recognisable…
And now that businesses are creating content across more channels, with more contributors and more AI, those clues matter more than ever.
I love this Easter egg analogy.
Not just because it’s fun (or because I’m writing this on Easter Monday), but because it explains something important about brand communication in a way that actually sticks.
Think about films like Wicked or Dune: Part Two. Part of what makes them so satisfying is the layering – the repeated cues, callbacks and references that make the world feel coherent.
Brand voice works in a similar way.
It gives your audience those repeated verbal signals that make your business feel recognisable, familiar and consistent. Like it knows who it is.
And that matters now more than ever.
Because your brand is no longer showing up in one place, written by one person, once in a while. It’s showing up across your website, emails, proposals, social content, sales material and AI-generated drafts.
If no one has clearly defined what your brand should say, how it should sound and what needs to stay true every time you communicate, the result is usually the same: fuzzy messaging, colourless copy and a brand that feels blurrier than it should.
What brand voice actually does
Brand voice is often mistaken for polish.
It isn’t.
It’s not about sounding clever, cool or “on brand” in a vague aesthetic sense. It’s about creating a consistent communication experience, so your audience feels like they’re hearing from the same business every time.
A clear brand voice helps you sound:
- recognisable
- consistent
- trustworthy
- considered
- unmistakably like yourself
It also makes writing easier.
When your brand voice is clear, you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you write a page, an email or a LinkedIn post. You have a point of view. A tone. A set of patterns people come to associate with your brand.
That is what makes your communication feel connected rather than cobbled together.
Brand voice and messaging aren’t the same thing
This is where businesses often get stuck.
Brand voice is how your brand sounds. Messaging is what your brand consistently says.
And you need both.
You can have a warm, distinctive tone and still be unclear about your value. You can also have strong strategic ideas but communicate them in a way that feels flat, generic or inconsistent.
The strongest brands have both:
- a clear message
- and a recognisable way of delivering it
That’s what gives your communication substance, not just style.
What’s with the Easter egg metaphor?
In cinema and video game culture, Easter eggs are small details, often hidden in plain sight. They enrich the viewing experience, like a little gift or a wink for those who spot them.
They’re small, intentional signals that tell people they’re in a particular world.
In brand copywriting, they might be a repeated phrase. A familiar rhythm. A certain kind of humour. A consistent way of explaining things. A perspective that shows up again and again.
Not everyone will consciously notice every detail. That’s not the point.
The point is that over time, those repeated signals create recognition.
Your audience starts to feel the pattern. They know what kind of voice they’re hearing. They know what kind of brand they’re dealing with. They trust the consistency, even if they can’t explain why.
Those are your verbal Easter eggs.
And the best ones feel natural, deliberate and true to the brand behind them.
Why this matters more now
A few years ago, the main problem with writing content was inconsistency across people and platforms.
That’s still a problem. But now there’s another layer: AI.
Businesses are creating more content, across more channels, at greater speed. Many are using AI to help. (Let’s face it, that ship has sailed.)
But AI has made one issue much more obvious.
AI doesn’t solve unclear messaging. It scales it.
If your brand voice is vague, buried in someone’s head or based on instinct rather than strategy, Ol’ Chatty G can’t magically turn that into distinctive content. It defaults to bland, broad, perfectly polished sameness.
That’s why so much AI-generated content sounds generic.
Not because the tools are inherently bad, but because the inputs are weak.
If the strategy is fuzzy, the writing will be too.
How brand voice & messaging guidelines help
The best brand voice & messaging guidelines aren’t a fancy PDF of audience personas or adjectives.
They’re practical tools that help you write more clearly and consistently.
Good brand voice guidelines cover:
- the core personality of your brand
- tone descriptors and what they mean in practice
- how your brand should & shouldn’t sound
- vocabulary likes & dislikes
- sentence style
- structural habits
- core messaging themes
- examples of your voice in action
In other words, they help answer questions like:
- What do we want to be known for?
- How should our writing make people feel?
- What tone fits us, and what doesn’t?
- What do we say repeatedly across channels?
- Which phrases feel natural to us?
- How do we make sure our content still sounds like us, even when different people or AI tools are involved?
That’s the difference between hoping your content feels cohesive and actually building a system that makes it more likely.
What this looks like in practice
Let’s make this less abstract.
Without a clear voice and message, your business might say things like:
‘We provide tailored solutions for modern businesses.’
It sounds polished and professional. But, honestly, it could belong to anyone.
When you have a clear foundation, your writing starts to sound specific, grounded and recognisable. It says something real. It reflects an actual point of view.
It sounds like your business knows what it does, who it helps and how it wants to come across.
That difference shows up everywhere:
- on your website
- in your service descriptions
- in your emails
- in your sales copy
- in your proposals
- in your social content
- in the drafts your AI assistant produces
Not as a gimmick but as a pattern. A set of repeated cues that tell people, consciously or not: this belongs to the same brand.
Why this matters for AI content too
This is where the conversation has shifted most.
Brand voice used to be seen as something that helped humans write better.
Now it does that and more.
It helps AI produce stronger first drafts too.
If you want AI writing to sound like your business, your tool needs more than a vague prompt and a few adjectives. It needs real direction. Clear messaging. Voice rules. Examples. Boundaries. Patterns.
Otherwise, it’ll do what generic AI does best: produce generic content.
If your brand voice lives mostly in your head, AI can’t use it.
But once you’ve defined the strategic foundations properly, AI becomes far more useful. Faster first drafts. More consistency. Less rewriting. More output that actually sounds like it belongs to your business.
That’s why I see brand voice & messaging strategy and AI writing support as connected, not separate.
One gives you the foundation.
The other helps you use it at scale.
So, can your audience recognise you without the logo?
If your logo disappeared tomorrow, would your audience know a piece of writing came from you?
Would your website, emails, LinkedIn posts and AI-assisted content sound like they belong to the same business?
Would there be enough repeated signals for people to feel the pattern?
Because that’s what strong brand communication does.
It doesn’t just fill space. It builds recognition.
Build the foundation first
If your messaging feels erratic and colourless, start with strategy.
This work helps define what your brand should say, how it should sound and what needs to stay true across every touchpoint. It gives you a practical foundation for clear communication and better decision-making.
And if you’re already using AI, or want to use it without sounding like everyone else, that same foundation becomes even more valuable. A brand-trained AI writing assistant works best when it’s built on real strategic inputs rather than generic prompts.
Because the goal isn’t just to create more content.
It’s to create content that sounds recognisably ‘you’.
That’s what people remember.
That’s what builds trust.
And that’s what turns scattered words into a brand people know when they hear it.
Need brand clarity?
Explore my Brand Voice & Messaging Strategy service if you want a practical foundation for what your brand says and how it sounds.
Want AI to sound more like your business?
Take a look at my Brand-Trained AI Writing Assistant service if you want faster content with more consistency and less rewriting.