This week’s brand review focuses on fluctuating American tastes… and waists.

This week’s brand news includes planes and trains but no automobiles (for a change).

Sexy young models in revealing poses.  Scandals, cover-ups and legal catfights. Cops who can’t stay on the right side of the road. This week’s edition reads like a Raymond Chandler novel.

Two of the world’s most powerful professional sports leagues take very different approaches to facing pressing challenges while two notable names abandon the partners who brought them to the dance.

There’s only bad news for big automotive brands in a week that was unsafe at any speed (he said, borrowing from Nader to describe the nadir).

One big-box retailer sees e-commerce fortunes rise while others prep for steep cuts as profits fall. And think twice before sprinkling that cheese on your pasta.

It’s Apple vs. the Feds in a heavyweight slugfest. Meanwhile, a former search champion can’t stop the bleeding and a dazed palooka takes yet another punch.

A space-exploration brand on the rise (literally); a worthy punching bag gets slugged again; and we bid a fond farewell to a once-great American brand.

The arrival of one child inspires unprecedented philanthropy, while the security and privacy of millions of others are threatened after a popular toymaker gets hacked.

An acquisition creates the world's largest hospitality brand. Fantasy football fans in NY get benched. And it's tough turkey for a national retailer ahead of the holiday season. 

A national retailer stays on-brand by closing its doors on one of the year's busiest shopping days. And will the trouble in coffee kingdom last longer than the line for your next mocha-frappa-slappa-ccino?

A mobile-payment innovator goes IPO while more job cuts could mean RIP for a daily-dealer and the FTC, EPA and DOJ could spell doom for VW  

Succession planning wins the day for a venerable fashion brand while NASA sends a long-time favorite contractor on an untethered space walk.

The automotive industry was kind enough to supply the grist for this inaugural edition of Good Week/Bad Week in Branding.