Welcome to our blog, Cobalt-60.

Brand guidelines detail a company’s visual identity. Find out more about what brand guidelines are and how they’re useful to companies of all sizes.

Powerful headlines take work, but few resources explain how to write killer headlines that get readers to click. This blog covers all of the bases.

After a few years of diligent blog writing, organizations accumulate a lot of blog content. In this article, we explain why and how to update blog posts.

The evolution of the Cobalt Communications brand has been ongoing for nearly two decades. Our newest iteration is a natural extension.

This blog post will examine the value of internal and external strategic communications for business growth and illustrate this concept with three real-world examples.

Examine the best practices of communicating complex ideas and evaluate the best marketing tools for the job.

Cobalt wins three platinum and one gold award in the 2021 MarCom Awards, sponsored by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals.

Saying thank you is a good thing — for the recipient and, according to the science of gratitude, for you. Offer thanks today and start feeling better.

Tell a better brand story by developing and consistently implementing a brand messaging framework.

Examine the best practices of communicating complex ideas and evaluate the best marketing tools for the job.

Demonstrated progress in sustainability can help build relationships and show your company’s authentic commitment to environmental and social issues.

In this article, we explain how to create a simple, concise internal communications strategy that you can use in any industry.

PowerPoint can be an effective tool if it’s used correctly. Here’s how to pimp your presentation.

Infographics have transformed the way, and the speed with which, we understand complex concepts and act on them.

The best doers don’t always make the best leaders; read these tips to lead better.

Graphic designers have many different tools for creating effective visual communications — isolation is one of the most important.

Here are how leaders can use communications to alleviate workplace isolation, engage their teams and foster inclusion during these challenging times.

The language of loneliness has been universal this year. A close look at how loneliness, isolation and solitude can help and hurt us.

These internal communications best practices can either build or reinforce a communications culture.

You often hear marketing experts talk about the value of brand consistency, but they don’t often discuss how consistency affects us at a cellular level. This article explains the biological basis of consistency.

Here are Cobalt’s eight predictions about post-COVID marketing.

They say reading a great book is like escaping to another world. Here are 18 titles, recommended by Cobalt staff, that can take you far away.

Clichés aren’t always bad. They can foster togetherness, inclusion and mutual understanding — a verbal or visual common ground.

Need a break from the COVID-19 virus? Cobalt has rounded up our best recommendations to escape reality.

At Cobalt, where a third of our team works remotely, we find ourselves particularly well-positioned to help you be productive while working from home. Read on for some tools and tips.

We sent our active clients a sunprint kit to start the new year. Check out their creations.

Writers and designers are “creatives,” but they work quite differently. What can each creative discipline learn from the other?

Imagine internal and external communications as two partners in a well-functioning, long-term relationship. Like any great partnership, they’re better when they work together and play off of the other’s strengths.

As January 2020 dawns on us — our 15th year of business — we’ve drawn up a list of 15 Communications Resolutions.

What makes a slogan so effective? Why do some (think “Where’s the Beef?”) become earworms and others fall flat?

We get it, the communications landscape can be a bit confusing. So we broke it down for you.

Take some time to reevaluate and rebalance your sales and marketing efforts.

Effective messaging isn’t only about what you say — it’s also about how and when you say it to whom

Even for the most experienced marketing pros, the responsibility of keeping your brand’s content flowing across the web can be daunting, even exhausting. It’s like feeding a monster that’s never satisfied. So,in this article, we turn to a familiar mantra of environmentalism — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — to explore how marketers and business professionals canget more mileage out of theircontentand do more with less.

Swearing in the workplace used to be a no-no — no questions asked. But as three-piece suits have been replaced by khakis and no-tuck shirts, so too have we become more casual about the occasional oath or obscenity. Research shows that swearing can play an important role in communication, though there are some who argue it has no place in civil discourse.

Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, is often regarded as one of history’s greatest military strategists. According to the Chinese general, if you want to defeat your enemy, you must know them as well as you know yourself. The same is true if you’re marketing a brand — to succeed, you must know your competition.

Leaders of all kinds may feel they’re working 24/7 to take their organizations to the next level. There are this year’s trends and this quarter’s results and next quarter’s forecasts to worry about. You’ve built 7 highly effective habits but may feel frustrated enough to scream those 7 dirty words or commit one of the 7 deadly sins. Let’s reverse-engineer successes of organizations that have made it to where you want to be.

Today, it’s easy to see brand positioning at work in some of the most recognizable brands, such as Netflix and Whole Foods. But even if you don’t have the resources of these big consumer brands, even if you’re a small B2B businesses, you can apply the principles of positioning.

Every day, we’re bombarded by the maddening susurration of voices coming to us via the internet. Much of it is potentially interesting, but most of us don’t have the time, inclination or supernatural abilities to absorb it all. That’s why, as marketers and communicators, we must produce content that stands out and grabs the attention of our busy and easily distracted audience. One great way to do that is to start telling stories. In this article, we share some basic storytelling techniques that can be adopted easily as you develop content for common social media platforms.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, or FUD, is a fear-based marketing strategy used in disciplines such as public relations, advertising and even politics. Influencers use FUD techniques to make us stop, think and change our behavior to choose their preferred option over another more questionable option. Keep reading to learn how you can leverage fear in your marketing — and when you might decide to avoid it altogether.

Each September, Interbrand releases its “Best Global Brands” annual rankings. While we wait to find out who will top the 2018 list, let’s take a closer look at the importance of brand consistency to businesses large and small, whether they sell to other businesses or direct to consumers.

The north pole is at the top of the world, and the south pole is at the bottom. But why is this? There is no scientific reason that one pole should be considered “up” and one “down.” A brief history lesson about the Mercator projection can help us appreciate the importance of a fresh perspective in our creative strategies.

Thirteen years ago, in 2005, Cobalt Communications was officially founded! To celebrate this June, we are highlighting some extraordinary discoveries and events that happened our inaugural year.

When you think of brainstorming, you might conjure up images of the Schooner Tuna creative session from Mr. Mom: agency team members gathered in a conference room, cigarette smoke billowing, clothes wrinkled, Chinese food growing crusty in the takeout containers while ideas died their slow death on an easel pad. A lot has been learned about brainstorming since then, including the fact that groups are not always better than individuals when it comes to generating great ideas.

Cobalt moved to a new office location in November 2017. It didn’t take us long to realize that Cobalt-branded signage was critical to day-to-day operations — and to our overall brand.

Cobalt Communications president and director of strategy, Leslie Harris, has been named a Board Member at Large for the Mid-Atlantic Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (MASHSMD). Leslie and her fellow board members will be working together to grow MASHSMD’s membership through engaging and educational networking events that bring together healthcare marketing and communications strategists from across Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

At Cobalt, we take understanding seriously. But what does that really mean? What is understanding? When someone attains understanding, what have they achieved? In this post, we try to understand understanding more deeply.

Achieving understanding can always be “easier” on an audience … but can’t always be “easy.” When creating infographics, you should strive to facilitate understanding, but if you oversimplify information too much or fail to give readers additional opportunities to dig deeper, then you may be falling short as a communicator.

Call it a slogan. Call it a cutline. Call it a tagline. Whatever you call it, just don’t dismiss it as a piece of throwaway marketing language. A powerful tagline can help you differentiate your business and attract new customers.

So what’s in the DNA of a great name, the unseen coding that makes it look and sound like a million dollars? Our checklist dissects five simple requirements that will help your brand grow into an empire worthy of worship.

As a company owner, leader or manager, you’re not just building a business. You’re building a brand. “Doing business” refers to day-to-day operational stuff. “Building a brand” refers to developing an idea that is worth loving — an idea that will connect what you do with the people who consume it and create a memorable, emotional reaction. And the secret to building your brand? Knowing what’s important and what’s urgent.