Cheryl Pegus, who became Walgreens' chief medical officer in May last year, said the healthcare system is shifting toward more accessible and collaborative models and that both pharmacists and nurse practitioners are "well positioned to have a substantial impact in a post-reform environment." Speaking at Forum 11, the annual meeting of the Care Continuum Alliance in San Francisco, she said medication nonadherence, unnecessary hospital readmissions, aging and chronic illness, and the growing primary care physician shortage are key stresses on the healthcare system in the U.S. Pegus talked about recent collaboration agreements that Walgreens has formed with health …

Coda Automotive Inc., the Los Angeles-based electric car company, is bringing out its first car this year, but it would be hard to notice it. It looks like a small car with four doors. The company is opening its first storefront on L.A.'s west side in the Westfield Century City mall. The store is next to a Swatch shop and Godiva chocolatier, and is geared toward getting passersby to take a test drive, albeit relatively affluent passersby as the car starts at $44,900 (though that drops to $34,900 after applying federal and state incentives.)

Here's Bnet's Jim Edwards with a rogue's gallery of advertisers. Are they exploiting 9/11 to pitch products or offering a memorial and panegyric to those who lost their lives? Look and judge for yourselves.

HotelTonight, a mobile app that offers deep discounts on same-day hotel deals, has Travelocity executive Beth Murphy as marketing chief. HotelTonight has Android and iOS apps that allow users to access big hotel room discounts. The service, in 22 cities, is focused around last-minute bookings. The company, which raised $3.25 million from Battery Ventures, Accel Partners and First Round Capital, has seen over 700,000 downloads of its mobile apps.

The restaurateur David Chang is featured in a campaign for Uniqlo as the retailer expands. With the economy hobbled, the holiday shopping season may be rough. But marketers are rolling out ads now for December. Recently, retail chains reported better sales for August than had been expected. And the September issue of Real Simple magazine has advertisements from retailers like Eileen Fisher, Gap Kids, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom, J.C. Penney and Zappos.com. "We are optimistic," said Ellis Verdi, president and co-founder of DeVito/Verdi, because whatever economic conditions may be, these women "are not going to bum around in …

Bloggers Veronica Manlow and Roger Gonzalez say multicultural marketing, in the traditional sense of the phrase, is dead. "Go to any of the few ethnic ad agencies still left and you'll hear, 'We are evaluating our options,' trying to 'secure client budget approval,' and so on," they write. They say the collapse of traditional ethnic segments and the emergence of new multicultural identities have changed the game. "We are not 'Hispanic,' we are 'Dominican/Ecuadorian' -- was a key factor," they write. "The 2010 U.S. Census paints a surprising portrait of an America less amenable to classification because of …

Saab is building the new 9-4X but potential customers are still steering clear. And now a Swedish district court has rejected the company's request to go into reorganization, a process that would protect it from workers and others owed millions in cash while it comes up with plans to replenish its coffers. Saab officials say they intend to appeal the decision by the Vanersborg District Court but observers have begun to believe that the financially strapped maker might now be forced into an involuntary bankruptcy - even though several Chinese companies are themselves waiting for regulatory approval on …

In this first of a series, John Hayes talks about his 16 years overseeing American Express marketing and talks about coming challenges. He touts programs like Members Project that brings Cardmembers together for causes, and Small Business Saturday, "where we partnered with Facebook to build a national movement encouraging Americans to support small businesses during the 2010 holiday shopping season," as standouts. And, of course, the "My Life. My Card" campaign, the company's first umbrella marketing campaign for the entire American Express card portfolio. "It was built on the platform of fostering a personal, emotional connection. It really resonated with …

Proponents of the federal government's proposed voluntary guidelines on marketing food to children are lining up against the food and beverage industry in support of proposed federal guidelines that would make food, beverage, and restaurant companies either modify product formulations or cut out all marketing aimed at children under 18 of products that don't meet certain nutrition standards. The Food Marketing Workgroup, a coalition of 95 organizations aimed at improving nutrition and ending obesity among the nation's children, is concentrating on the Democratic-controlled Senate. The group wants to counter language inserted into House Appropriations bills that would cut …

As part of a strategy to give the North American market as much autonomy as possible, Toyota will soon cease importing Camry sedans from Japan, relying solely on two U.S. plants to provide more than a third of a million copies of the midsize model annually. The move roughly coincides with the upcoming launch of the 2012 Toyota Camry, which has led car sales in the U.S. for 13 of the last 14 years. But because of power shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami in March, the automaker has seen Camry slip behind the Chevrolet Cruze. And the move …