Welcome to our blog, Cobalt-60.

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.

Successful environmental branding creates a physical space that effectively embodies a brand and communicates its attributes, personality and key messages. That space may be in retail stores, restaurants, office environments or even at tradeshows. It is accomplished through intentional design of a space’s atmosphere and carefully considers factors such as color, texture and materials, size and smell.

Eclipse mania may be fading (along with the white-hot images on our retinas), but the idea of an eclipse — an obscuring of light from one celestial body by the passage of another between it and an observer — made me think about how this phenomenon applies to communications. Is it possible to behave in such a way or deliver messages in such a way that the audience only remembers the person sending, not the content being sent?