1. INFECTIOUS
AUGUST 2011
a round up
of the latest
communications
news & ideas
from around
the world
brought to you by

2. CHEERS! HEINEKEN SERVES UP
FREE WIFI IN 100 UK PUBS AND BAR
Holland’s favourite beer brand Heineken Every Heineken Hub will offer fast, free
has teamed up with British Telecom to Wi-Fi along with access to exclusive
provide free Wi-Fi to drinkers in 100 pubs iNewspaper content
and bars across the UK
Heineken Hubs are specially selected For more info see:
venues across the UK “where specially http://ow.ly/6bkE4
trained staff take pride in pouring you
the perfect Heineken,” in the company’s
own words.
INFECTIOUS

3. ORANGINA CELEBRATES 75th
ANNIVERSARY USING FACEBOOK
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the The app has great potential in terms of word
brand, Orangina has created a nostalgic of mouth, as it taps in the kind of curiosity a
Facebook app that helps you remember lot of spam applications are proving successful
who your first Facebook friends were. to trigger (eg. see who is looking at your
The application creates a list of your top profile etc). So the results will be interesting
10 Facebook friends who gave you your to see in a month time.
first likes, posts and comments, sorted
by date. And, as a souvenir, you can save a Try it for yourself:
picture of these friends in your photo http://apps.facebook.com/showyouroriginals/
album..
INFECTIOUS

4. McDONALDS CELEBRATES ‘DOLLAR
DRINK DAYS’ IN CANADA
Fast food favourite McDonald’s ice, it would slowly shed its dollar coins,
recently celebrated ‘Dollar Drink Days’ – giving people the exact amount to purchase
a campaign that sees all its beverages a drink from the dollar menu.
reduced to a mere dollar – with an
experimental promotion in Alberta, In a mere five hours the fast food brand
Canada that featured a beach party, parted with 4,000 Canada dollars,
complete with a DJ, street teams, family converting what could have been a very dull
sports activities and giveaways. promotional giveaway into a shared reward
event that saw consumers spending a few
The highlight of the outdoor activation hours interacting directly with the
was a giant ice sculpture, which company’s logo.
contained an image of the famous
Golden Arches logo created out of Watch the video:
thousands of individual dollar coins http://ow.ly/6brcH
encased in the 8,000 pounds of moulded
ice.
As the sculpture melted, or as
passers-by furiously chipped away at the
INFECTIOUS

5. APP SHOWS ROAD ACCIDENTS
USING AUGMENTED REALITY
Moscow’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, To encourage downloads the agency behind
are hoping to highlight the importance of the app, are placing chalk-like outlines of
road safety with an innovative new app for bodies around the city with QR codes.
smartphones. The app uses geolocation There’s also a web-based version of this
technology to augment reality and allow app for those without smartphones.
users to instantly see car-related deaths,
accidents and injuries that may have Watch the video:
occurred in a particular area. Users can then http://ow.ly/6btAU
view the accident in more details with
photos, videos and information.
INFECTIOUS

6. VIRTUAL BOARDING AGENTS GREET
PASSENGERS AT PARIS-ORLY AIRPORT
Paris-Orly airport in France is testing an automated message,
virtual boarding agents that greet So far the virtual agent has had a largely
passengers as they enter through the positive response with amused and
boarding gates. The life-like 2D hologram surprised travellers. Airport officials hope
images are projected onto a human- this technology will make way finding
shaped plexiglas. The virtual agent clearer for passengers in comparison to
appears with a press of a button to the traditional electronic displays.
signal the start of boarding. The flight
destination flashes in front of the
virtual assistant and is accompanied by
INFECTIOUS

7. BING INTRODUCES LOCATION-
BASED APP ‘WE’RE IN’
Microsoft owned search engine Bing The app is designed for Windows Phone
has announced the release of a brand and is intended for organising get-
new location-based app called ‘We’re In’. togethers and hanging out with friends.
The app which does pretty much what it
says on the tin allows you to invite Download the app:
your friends, share your location and http://ow.ly/6bwWf
update your status.
INFECTIOUS

8. THE PEDAL-POWERED
VENDING MACHINE
rewarded with a free bottle of Activate,
with the actual retail value of all the
free bottles donated to support nutrition
for pregnant women.
“Bring your legs, not your quarters” was
the tagline on the accompanying
billboards that supported the cashless
vending machine. Getting consumers to
work for their freebies is definitely on
the rise as brands across the globe
Activate, a vitamin-enhanced bottled increasingly look to focus on
water, recently installed a pedal powered sustainability in a tangible, yet
vending machine outside a shopping accessible, way – see ‘McDonalds
centre in Los Angeles as part of a celebrates ‘Dollar Drink Days’ in Canada’
charitable marketing stunt for the example above.
brand’s ‘Turn for the Better’ promotion.
Passers-by who were prepared to jump
on a bike and pedal for 30 seconds were
INFECTIOUS

9. APPLE TESTS SOCIAL MEDIA
INTEGRATION ON ONLINE STORE
Apple fan boys and girls amongst you The new version now has social media
may have noticed that the online Apple integration across the store allowing
Store was briefly offline on the 18th users to share products via Facebook and
August. Twitter.
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10. A CRACKING PIECE OF DIRECT
FROM MERCEDES BENZ
Last, but by no means least, is a smart piece of direct courtesy of German car brand
Mercedes showing that great creative still works on paper. Print – alive and well!
INFECTIOUS

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