Good Week/Bad Week in Branding

Good Week: Google – The so-much-more-than-search, can’t-live-without-it tech giant notches an equally giant victory in its quest to digitize millions of books (aka Google Books), prevailing over The Authors Guild in decade-long legal battle that reached the Supreme Court. Does Google ever have a bad brand week?

Bad Week: The Solar Industry – After seeing a general slow-down due to months of depressed oil and gas prices, the solar industry took a big hit when clean-energy poster-child SunEdison – valued at more than $10B fewer than 12 months ago – filed for bankruptcy protection. Sunshine go away today, don’t feel much like investin’.

Worse Week: Intel – In what’s being referred to as a “restructuring,” the colossal chip-maker – in the midst of a transition “from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices,” according to its CEO – announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs, or 11% of its workforce. #pinkslipinside