Advertising and marketing

The U.S. Postal Service's ZIP code system turns 50 on Monday, harkening back to a time when those five digits were the side effect of the tech behind a quickly evolving communications industry.

The service introduced the ZIP code, or Zone Improvement Plan, in 1963 as "five trailblazing numbers" that "launched every piece of mail with space-age speed and precision," according to a cheesy 1960s public service announcement video that encouraged people to use ZIP codes while addressing mail.

The nearly 15-minute video also featured a singing group called "The Swingin' Six," … Read more

When a man called Jeff asks you to join him for a game of golf, you might agree.

However, when a robot called Jeff wants to accompany you to your local links, you'd better be prepared for losing a couple of links in the chain to your perfect swing and your mental equilibrium.

For Jeff the robot is a trash-talking, joyously mean-spirited golfing robot with a very well-honed swing.… Read more

This is what happens after a series of bumbling owners fail to keep a once terrific product relevant in a dynamic market: You get a cold PR send-off that doesn't even fill the screen.

"Please visit Yahoo! Search for all of your searching needs."

That's all Yahoo wrote Friday afternoon as it lumped in the news that it was killing off AltaVista on July 8 with word that it will also ax 11 other products that no longer matter to the company.

Jay Rossiter, the vice president in charge of platforms, said the moves will free … Read more

While junior Texas state senator Wendy Davis got thrust into the national spotlight this week for her starring role in an anti-abortion-bill filibuster, her tennis shoes are enjoying their own run with fame on Amazon reviews.

"Best damn shoe for being on your feet for 13 hours. Also the best shoe to kick Governor Rick Perry's ass!" reads one of a growing number of Amazon reviews of the Mizuno's Wave Rider 16 running shoes the Democratic lawmaker made famous overnight.

Reads another: "I am so glad that I have a choice about what shoes to buy! Imagine if some legislator tried to tell me what type of shoes worked best for me or what type of shoes were available to me... that is so un-American!" … Read more

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, a group that represents hundreds of Internet advertisers, has attacked Mozilla's involvement in a Stanford Law School privacy project to judge whether individual Web sites can be trusted to set behavior-tracking browser cookies.

The IAB doesn't like the Cookie Clearninghouse, which Stanford's Center for Internet and Society and Mozilla announced on June 19. The project aims to rate individual to bring privacy ratings for browser cookies -- the small text files that Web site operators can store on people's computers. Cookies can be useful for remembering that you're logged into a … Read more

In letters to Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft's Bing, and several other search engines, the FTC updated its guidance from 2002 about the need to distinguish between advertisements and search results. Since that original letter in 2002, the FTC has seen a decline in compliance with its guidelines.

"The letters note that in recent years, paid search results have become less distinguishable as advertising, and the FTC is urging the search industry to make sure the … Read more

They are red-eyed and dead-eyed.

They are brain-dead and stiff-lipped.

Their pale faces stare at you, ready to infect you, so that they can affect you. Who are these people? These are the iZombies.

Yes, no sooner had Samsung become somewhat bored with smacking at Apple's pinata of faith then Nokia decided that it, too, must show iPhone users as a group gone awry.

In a new ad to press home the advantage of the flashy, nonflashy camera on the 925 phone, Nokia paints iPhone users as zombies: all flash and no panache.

Here we have the lone Nokia … Read more

Twitter has signed a deal to begin delivering social video ads built around Viacom's most popular TV shows.

In the announcement, put out by Viacom, the two companies said that the campaigns would center around shows aired on networks like MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, VH1, CMT, TV Land, Spike and more. The first ads will appear during the MTV Video Music Awards on August 25. During that show, MTV will tweet a series of the most notable moments, as well as backstage access, interviews, and more, all with integrated advertising.

Bloomberg first reported in April that a deal between … Read more

During Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's whirlwind Asia tour, he stopped by the offices of Samsung this week for a quick meeting with the company's president, Shin Jong Kyun.

After the meeting, Shin stopped to talk to reporters and said that the two discussed potential partnerships, according to Bloomberg. The partnerships would reportedly center on advancing mobile-advertising sales.

Facebook has been long pushing to boost advertising on mobile. In April, the social network debuted Facebook Home, which is a family of mobile apps and a social-networking-focused skin that runs over Android in smartphones like HTC's One and Samsung'… Read more