And an Apple spokesman reiterated that Jobs will be returning to his duties at the end of this month.

The old model of marketing -- offer differentiated benefits to specific segments -- is breaking down as people find that store brands that are priced right suit them just fine, blogs Joel Rubinson, chief research officer at the Advertising Research Foundation. "Now what?" Rubinson asks. Well, you've got to change the model, and he offers four ways to do so. But there's another hitch. Your brand is competing for consumer's attention in the "mental marketplace," not only against other brands that may be functionally unrelated but also against the likes of celebrities and news publishers. "Whole Foods …

For at least five years, the tried-and-true formulas to boost sales and market shares have been becoming increasingly irrelevant, say John Gerzema, chief insights officer at Young & Rubicam, and Ed Lebar, the CEO of BrandAsset Consulting who oversees Y&R's brand strategy and research. A few brands, however, have bucked the trend. They share a set of "energized" attributes that companies can identify and exploit. Brands such as Adidas, iPhone, Pixar and Wikipedia communicate excitement, dynamism, and creativity in ways that the vast majority of their competitors do not. Gerzema and Lebar identify three major problems: excess capacity, …

Whether or not they ride an elevator, your best brand assets walk out your door every night, writes Morgan Daloisio, a manager with strategic marketing consulting firm CMG Partners. Employees can either reinforce or break a brand's promise every time they interact with a customer, shareholder or another employee. To start branding from the inside out, follow three principles, she says. First, remember that your company's values are more than just posters on the wall, and that actions speak louder than words. "You don't turn a company into a Virgin company by putting the logo above the door," says …

So reads the headline. "You're seeing a lot of ideas everywhere," Mark Tutssel, global chief creative officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide, tells Teresa Howard in Cannes. "The industry has completely changed." It may have, as we've read above, but not in its use of the tired and true. "Our goal is to break through the clutter, generate buzz and engage with people and ultimately drive viewership of our programming," says Courteney Monroe, evp, consumer marketing of HBO, a winner last year for its multimedia "Voyeur" program and contender this year for "True Blood." Which is, of course, about what they've …

Kai Ryssdal chats with Northwestern marketing professor Eric Anderson, who says people tend to stick with the brands they trade down to and now's a good time to shift promotion dollars into advertising messages that gibe with issues consumers care about (like the environment).

Wells Fargo didn't transmogrify into General Motors, but Netflix CEO Reed Hastings feels like a guy who owned a fleet of stagecoaches around the turn of the 20th century. He thinks his core business -- mailing rental DVDs to consumers -- is doomed, writes Nick Wingfield. Hastings is scrambling to offer digital delivery and his case history offers "a rare look at how a CEO manages a still-hot business as its time runs out," Wingfield writes. The biggest challenge will be to convince Hollywood studios that the DVD is the old grey mare the rest of the world knows …