Need to Know
12 : 01 :18

Berlin – The sportswear brand is teaming up with Berlin’s transport authority BVG to offer customers a year’s worth of free subway travel when they buy a pair of limited-edition trainers. The shoe design incorporates BVG’s multicoloured seat upholstery pattern and the annual pass is assimilated into the tongue.

The trainers are priced at £160 ($216, €180) compared with an annual ticket that costs £643 ($871, €728), saving the buyer a considerable amount of money. Brands such as adidas and WelectGo are working with public transport bodies to offer consumers free rides in exchange for brand engagement.

By limiting the number of shoes made, adidas is helping to create a sense of frenzy and desirability that taps into the growing Hype Market.

Las Vegas – The Swedish beauty technology brand has announced its latest product, the UFO, which is designed to address the masking phenomenon that has been so popular in the past few years.

The device is loaded with single-use microfibre masks – the company is launching both day and night mask options – and then uses four different treatments to activate the ingredients within. While most masks require at least 20 minutes to penetrate the skin, UFO's combination of methods including LED light therapy, cryotherapy, thermotherapy and T-sonic pulsations, means that it only takes 90 second to complete a treatment.

‘No one has thought to put all of these therapies into one device,’ a Foreo spokesperson told LS:N Global. ‘We wanted to take the single-mask process and turn it into a multilayered, yet efficient, experience.’

While K-beauty has taken the Western world by storm, Foreo's UFO fits in with the trajectory of time-pressed consumers expecting more effective products, in less time.

Germany – Car manufacturer Audi has created an open-source code that blocks motorists from going online on their phones while driving. The Audi Safety Code can be added to any website by the site host. It analyses GPS data and prevents anyone in a vehicle travelling at more than 20km per hour from browsing until they verify that they are not the driver.

The accompanying ad campaign, created in collaboration with Swedish digital agency Åkestam Holst, explains that driving while using a phone increases the risk of an accident by 300%, yet eight out of 10 drivers continue to do so.

In taking responsibility for both creating and open-sourcing the code, Audi is taking a civic-minded approach to driving that goes beyond its remit as a car manufacturer.

China is driving growth in the Ride-share Market as new research shows that consumers are increasingly choosing to use Uber or its Chinese equivalents Didi Chuxing and Dida Pinche rather than private transport. In 2017 Uber highlighted the problems with congestion in Asia, as the number of vehicles on the road causes gridlock, a problem that the brand claimed could be solved through ride-sharing.