BrandSnark: Good Week/Bad Week for the Big Brands

Good Week: Coca-Cola The soft-drink industry ruler announced plans to collect and recycle one bottle for each bottle it sells by 2030. The company also hopes its bottles will contain an average of 50% recycled materials by that time. I’d like to buy the world a Coke… if I could just reach across these Texas-sized mires of plastic debris floating in the world’s oceans.

New-Home Week: Patron & LaQuinta The high-end tequila brand was purchased for $5.1B by Bacardi, where it will join stablemates Grey Goose and the company’s eponymous rums. LaQuinta and its 900 locations was snapped up for $1.95B by mega-hotelier Wyndham Worldwide, whose portfolio include Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8 and other hotel brands. Expensive booze? Cheap hotels? Count me in!

Bad Week: Toys R Us – The in-bankruptcy retail chain announced it will close nearly 180 stores nationwide, or roughly one-fifth of its 880 U.S. locations. Some stores will be rebranded to include Babys R Us and Toys R Us products under the same roof. Big-box retail? It ain’t child’s play.