Yesterday, United and Continental Airlines, the third- and fourth-largest U.S. carriers respectively, announced they would be merging, creating the first-largest carrier. While the media focuses on numbers of flights, ramifications for shareholders and what will happen to customers' frequent flyer miles we focus our attention on what really matters: The literal merger of two infinitely different brands. As I see it, United has always had the cooler, hipper personality with its Saul Bass-designed

With 45,000 employees around the world, AECOM provides a wide range of services including architecture, building engineering, and transportation among others. It is a Fortune 500 company with revenues in the billions-of-dollars realm. Towards the end of the year in 2009, they introduced a new brand positioning and identity created by Landor.

What started as a company producing "decorative laminates" in 1959 in Portugal, Sonae is now one of the countries largest corporations with almost 40,000 employees that work in a mind-numbing range of sectors across various Sonae-owned customer-facing operations: from food retail, to pharmacies, to clothing, to consumer electronics, to managing shopping centers, to telecommunications, to real estate. Basically, it's hard to throw a stone in Portugal and not hit something owned or operated by Son

It's official. We are having a Brand New Conference in New York City on Friday, November 5, 2010. All day long. The conference will be held at the School of Visual Arts Theatre in the smaller "Beatrice" auditorium that accommodates 266 people. The venue was secured thanks to our first sponsor, the Masters In Branding at SVA. So, save the date and stay tuned as we start announcing speakers and other details.

The only insider information I have about the City of Regina in Canada is that you don't pronounce it as the proper name of your friend Regina — nope, it's pronounced like vagina. What? You come up with another word that sounds like that. In absence of some first-hand opinion, that I think some of our Canadian readers might be able to share, here are some facts: According to a 2006 census, Regina is the 16th largest city in Canada with a population of less than 200,000; as the capital of S

Here is another scenario for possible online consumption of the Brand New Conference. But before I explain that I just want to point out that, yes, we are trying to monetize this event as much as possible — not because we are greedy bastards, but because we need to both cover the expenses of the conference as well as build a solid cash reserve for Brand New that allows us to devote more time to it and other UnderConsideration ventures. Getting things for free is great, but giving them away

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me of writing Brand New reviews is learning about all these multi-thousand-employee organizations that I never knew existed, and if I knew they existed I never quite would have pinpointed what they do. Case in point: PGi. Formerly known, since 1991 and until this past January, as Premiere Global Services, a 2,700-employee organization with offices in 24 countries, whose "advanced meeting, conferencing and collaboration solutions energize people and or

Working continually in eleven countries — Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and India — and providing support to more than forty countries throughout its nearly twenty years in operation, Water for People "helps people in developing countries improve quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, and hygiene education programs." A big part of th

Here is another hypothetical question regarding the Brand New Conference — which, by the way, is becoming less hypothetical and we even have a date and venue to share next week. Since many people expressed interest in attending via a live webcast, this is something we are seriously considering and would like to get a sense of how many people would take part; this helps to both price it accordingly as well as budget it, since having 1,000 people attend makes a big difference over 500 people

Let's be perfectly honest here. The only reason we are talking about this is because it involves camels. Specifically the "before" camel. Look at it and tell me you don't want to learn more? Why is it so complacent? Who is it waiting for in such relaxed repose? Is it smiling at me? Can I take it home and feed it blue food? Okay, maybe I'm getting carried away and we should just state some facts. The adorable camel is the ex-mascot of the Connecticut College Camels, the 28-team athletics departme

Around the world, the adage applies that all roads lead to Rome, but in the state of New York, all roads lead to a SUNY (State University of New York) campus. With over 460,000 enrolled students across 64 campuses, SUNY is the biggest conglomerate of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, if not the world. Keeping the organization unified and focused must be a massive effort and sometimes it requires bold and far-reaching initiatives to keep things moving, so this m

At the turn of the century, the internet held the promise of content "streaming," a splashing waterfall of always-on music and video, but bandwidths weren't then what they are now, and the whole experience of streaming anything was slow and painful. One of the frontrunners though was Rhapsody in 2001, owned by Listen.com at the time, which provided over 30,000 legally-owned tracks. Two years later, Rhapsody was acquired by RealNetworks, where Rhapsody's catalog and subscribers continued to grow.

Please direct your browser to the newest member of the UnderConsideration family: Brand New Classroom. Nothing else to read here. Hope you enjoy. Tell your friends!

While still light years away from fair portrayal in the media as well as full social and cultural acceptance, the gay, lesbian and transgender community have had a strong ally the last 25 years that has positively broadened the views of the public in The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Established in New York in 1985, GLAAD "amplifies the voice of the LGBT community by empowering real people to share their stories, holding the media accountable for the words and images they pr

In case you somehow missed the announcement, this week saw the launch of the much awaited (not really, I think) Adobe CS5. Following the pattern where two versions are visually alike (CS1 and CS2, CS3 and CS4) CS5 comes with a brand new coat of fancy paint, meant very much to signify that this is a whole new version you must get right now. While CS1 and CS2 were well-known for their Meta Design-designed packaging and CS3 and CS4 became well know for the implacably strict icon set, CS5 looks like