This paper investigates how core competence helps in differentiating a corporate brand. This is achieved through a parallel review of discourses within core competence and corporate branding literatures – whilst also highlighting the weaknesses of existing corporate branding models. Consequently, the key discourses within core competence literature are drawn to develop a competence based corporate brand model. Thus a statement highlighting these discourses was presented to define a competence based brand. Accenture’s corporate advertisement was deconstructed through semiotic method – to strengthen the suggested definition. It is hoped that this paper would advance ongoing debate on the concept of corporate branding.