Koodo Mobile WARNING: Very cheesy.

[toma_alimosh]

Am I the only Canadian that sees these Koodo commercials everywhere and thinks that it's such a lousy campaign that the company will fail just because of its bad advertising?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at this:
It is the biggest cheese you've ever seen in your life. You have been warned.

+ YouTube Video

[Jacobfox]

amusing and EXTREMELY cheesy. You weren't kidding, vlad.

[Crazyjeeper]

Wow, that has to be one of the worst ads I have ever seen.

[Wizegui]

"ARE YOU LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE GSM NETWORK??.....we haven't got one actually..." This is starting to look a bit like the Virgin Mobile we have here. utter trash that is... I doubt they'll do well in the market. If they offered GSM phones and affordable prepaid/monthly plans, it might have succeeded.

[toma_alimosh]

^We have the same Virgin Mobile here. And guess what? Nobody I know has Virgin Mobile ... that's how large a market share they have.

[NooDle]

I'm watching it without sound (shitty work PC) and even I am revolted beyond belief.
Someone needs to shoot the host guy in the face. Repeatedly. Srsly

[cvrefugee]

I'm like 99% sure they're making fun of those ridiculous infomercials and not being serious.

[toma_alimosh]

No matter whether they're making fun of the ridiculous infomercials.
This is a real campaign. It's not a Comedy Network spoof. It's the real campaign that an up-and-coming cellphone company is using. What's even worse, it's not only on TV. It's everywhere. It's all over the walls of the subway stop at my university ... in the malls you can't turn around without seeing another poster of the "Koodo people" in their fitness outfits doing some feat of strength or something.

I'll go to school tomorrow and I'll try to get some pictures and post them up. Then you'll get it.

[Final Daihatsu]

This is a proper phone ad (Ignore the sponsor ad at the beginning, wait for the Flix logo)

[teeb]

Walk-talking!

[geeman]

It's not a serious ad..
Besides there is no such thing as bad publicity, people will surely remember them now.

[Shawn]

I don't think Koodo will fail because of bad advertising. Just look at Shaw, Bell and Rogers. Horrendous ads are rampant in the Canadian telecom industry.

[Vector]

The ads are designed to reach a younger audience, and I think they will succeed. I actually like the ciche 80s theme a lot more than the gay Telus or Bell ads.

And they actually have good, inexpensive, customizable plans; no contracts, no system access fee, etc.

I've signed up, and I hope they do really well because this is one of the first canadian cell phone companies that actually seems interested in giving the customer what they want.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by toma_alimosh

an up-and-coming cellphone company

Hardly up-and-coming, Koodo is just a subsidiary of Telus.

[toma_alimosh]

Originally Posted by Shawn

I don't think Koodo will fail because of bad advertising. Just look at Shaw, Bell and Rogers. Horrendous ads are rampant in the Canadian telecom industry.

Yes, their advertising is annoying really, especially Bell. But the ad campaigns of the other cell carriers are focused on a market and appeal to it. Take Bell for example ... the beavers are annoying as fuck, but through that, they appeal to Canadians and their sense of national pride.

Who does Koodo appeal to? What is their target market? From what these commercials show, thet target people who are: overweight (fitness theme), stupid (degree in mathematics), people who aren't familiar with technology (they show no handset examples at all), and people who like comedy shows (parody commercial).

But ... they insult the people who are overweight by telling them that only having a cellphone will get them more in shape ... they insult the intelligence of people who are bad at math and know very well that text messaging has nothing to do with math .... they don't offer any incentive or explanations for people who aren't very good with technology to get a handset from them .... and I doubt anybody would buy a product just because the company has a sense of humor.

Originally Posted by Vector

The ads are designed to reach a younger audience, and I think they will succeed. I actually like the ciche 80s theme a lot more than the gay Telus or Bell ads.

Well, the younger audience may be the only one they will get. The problem with the younger audience is that most young people, especially those without a job, don't get to decide what cellphone provider they get, since the parents pay the bill and the parents decide what company they get. So it kind of fails at getting it's target market, because most of its target market has little say in the purchasing decission

And they actually have good, inexpensive,

inexpensive?? seriously, how many other cellphone providers have you looked at? Fido, Telus, ring the bell?
I took a look at Koodo's plans ... and they're anything but inexpensive.

customizable plans; no contracts,

no contracts means that they can raise the fees as much as they want, as often as they want ... and you have to pay more on the very next bill, there's no way around that. Contracts have their issues, but they have their advantages, one being a more constant price for a long period, the other being an inexpensive (or free) handset.
The current system that Koodo has is that you can put $150 of your phone's retail value on a tab with them ... and then that tab runs out as you use your koodo phone ... 10% of your bill goes towards settling your tab. However, should you decide after 6 months you want to move on, then you have to pay your remaining tab to move on ... so you'd have to pay $100 just to get out of the Koodo network.
So, no contracts ... but higher fees, higher cellphone prices and higher penalties should you want to quit Koodo ... hardly attractive.

no system access fee, etc.

That's because they have no network of their own. They rent from others, so their costs depend on what the carriers that serve them want to charge them. So if, say, Rogers wants more money out of them, guess what? They can do it. And that also means that Koodo will raise their monthly plan fees .. and they can do that, because there's no contract. This also means that the carriers that serve them might, covertly, give preference to their own clients rather than the clients of subsidiaries ... that means more dropped calls.

Originally Posted by BerserkerCatSplat

Hardly up-and-coming, Koodo is just a subsidiary of Telus.

So Telus launches a discount subsidiary that charges more than what Telus regularly charges? WTF?

[anTo]

the skytrain ads are horrid lol...

[Wizegui]

I heard from somewhere that T-Mobile had just registered their name in Canada. Perhaps they will be coming here soon? It would be great when we can get some lowered mobile rates in Canada.

[Shawn]

^ Before Fido was bought out by Rogers, there were rumors that T-Mobile wanted to buy Fido. But there's some law about foreign companies only able to own a certain percentage of a Canadian company, so the deal somehow failed because of that.

Has it be reseructed? I'm with Fido and have been happily using them since 1998. Sure, cheaper data would be great, but of all the Canadian providers, Fido seems the best.

[Vector]

Originally Posted by toma_alimosh

Yes, their advertising is annoying really, especially Bell. But the ad campaigns of the other cell carriers are focused on a market and appeal to it. Take Bell for example ... the beavers are annoying as fuck, but through that, they appeal to Canadians and their sense of national pride.

I am Canadian, thank you, and they do NOT appeal to me. They are the most groan-inducing cell phone commercials out there. At least the Telus fish don't try and crack jokes.

But ... they insult the people who are overweight by telling them that only having a cellphone will get them more in shape ... they insult the intelligence of people who are bad at math and know very well that text messaging has nothing to do with math .... they don't offer any incentive or explanations for people who aren't very good with technology to get a handset from them .... and I doubt anybody would buy a product just because the company has a sense of humor.

I think you are a few IQ points short to be able to understand what the ads are saying. They have nothing to do with overweight people. Are you being serious? They are referring to trimming the 'fat' on your current cell phone bill by cutting out unneeded things. And since when has an ad these days ever said anything informative about the product? They are simply to generate interest and get the name out there. If someone becomes interested, they can google it or phone them.

Well, the younger audience may be the only one they will get. The problem with the younger audience is that most young people, especially those without a job, don't get to decide what cellphone provider they get, since the parents pay the bill and the parents decide what company they get. So it kind of fails at getting it's target market, because most of its target market has little say in the purchasing decission

Not sure how true this is. A lot of kids these days have their own money.

inexpensive?? seriously, how many other cellphone providers have you looked at? Fido, Telus, ring the bell?
I took a look at Koodo's plans ... and they're anything but inexpensive.

You can sign up for as little as 15 bucks a month. I would call that inexpensive. The plan I am getting is 25 bucks a month, still cheap compared to the 40-60 dollar averages out there.

no contracts means that they can raise the fees as much as they want, as often as they want ... and you have to pay more on the very next bill, there's no way around that. Contracts have their issues, but they have their advantages, one being a more constant price for a long period, the other being an inexpensive (or free) handset.
The current system that Koodo has is that you can put $150 of your phone's retail value on a tab with them ... and then that tab runs out as you use your koodo phone ... 10% of your bill goes towards settling your tab. However, should you decide after 6 months you want to move on, then you have to pay your remaining tab to move on ... so you'd have to pay $100 just to get out of the Koodo network.
So, no contracts ... but higher fees, higher cellphone prices and higher penalties should you want to quit Koodo ... hardly attractive.

This is just all sorts of wrong. What you see as a negative, I see as a positive. To get out of a contract you have to pay either the remainder of the terms balance, or an average of 400 dollars, whichever is HIGHER. To get out of a Koodo plan, you just have to pay for your phone. The most expensive model they have is only like 200 bucks. So how the hell do you figure that koodo has higher fees or higher cell phone prices? Koodo pays off your cell phone for you. If you stay on long enough, it IS FREE.

That's because they have no network of their own. They rent from others, so their costs depend on what the carriers that serve them want to charge them. So if, say, Rogers wants more money out of them, guess what? They can do it. And that also means that Koodo will raise their monthly plan fees .. and they can do that, because there's no contract. This also means that the carriers that serve them might, covertly, give preference to their own clients rather than the clients of subsidiaries ... that means more dropped calls.

This is all just speculation. And I'm pretty sure they're using the Telus network, not rogers. Anyway, ANY other cell phone carier in canada has to use either the telus or rogers network, so this is a moot point that does not only apply to Koodo. Are you saying we should only be limited to Telus or Rogers then because they're the ones who built the network?

So Telus launches a discount subsidiary that charges more than what Telus regularly charges? WTF?[/QUOTE]
Telus doesn't even offer anything with text for less than 30 bucks a month. So once agian... wrong.

[toma_alimosh]

Originally Posted by Vector

I think you are a few IQ points short to be able to understand what the ads are saying. They have nothing to do with overweight people. Are you being serious? They are referring to trimming the 'fat' on your current cell phone bill by cutting out unneeded things. And since when has an ad these days ever said anything informative about the product? They are simply to generate interest and get the name out there. If someone becomes interested, they can google it or phone them.

Apparently you didn't get the point I was trying to get accross here. It's not what they're saying. It's how they're saying it and how it's percieved by the audience. Many of people's purchasing decisions are made on subjective ideas rather than hard facts, such as product quality. Many people buy products for how they make them feel, not because they're better than the competition.

An ad campaign does that. Do people recycle because it gives them a big advantage? Probably not. Do they turn off their electronics in the house whenever they're not using them to save on the electicity bill? Mostly not.
So why do they do it? because they like to think of themselves as good citizens ... cutting back on deforestation by recycling paper ... although it costs their time to do so, and keeping pollution down and helping keep up the network by consuming less electricity. Again, these are based on ideas, not on the fact that they save every month. How much do you save by recycling and turning off your computer while you're away in a month? About 8-12 bucks.

Think of it this way: would a chocolate factory sell more chocolates if they had a nobel prize winner as a spokesperson or if they have a person who is soon proven to be a known pedophile as a spokesperson? Would the chocolate be bad just because people chose the wrong spokesperson? No. But would people buy it? No. Why? Because they don't want to support that kind of thing. It appeals to their feelings as family people .. and it has nothing to do with the quality of the chocolate or however cheap it is.

Not sure how true this is. A lot of kids these days have their own money.

Most don't .. especially high school kids. And I can tell you, a lot of my university schoolmates are also dependent on their parents right now ... almost none of them have jobs.
So at least for most kids in high school, the parents will make the decision. As for the ones in post-secondary, they start to think a bit more like adults in the matter and choose a carrier that suits an adult, because they want to look increasingly more like grown-ups.

ou can sign up for as little as 15 bucks a month. I would call that inexpensive. The plan I am getting is 25 bucks a month, still cheap compared to the 40-60 dollar averages out there.

The question over here is not only of price ... it's what you get for that price.
So you can pay 15 bucks all you want ... but if you get only 50 minutes any time of the week, that's not good value. It's about what you pay and how much you get for it.
I'm guessing you got the ready-made plan for $25 ... for that you got 100 minutes anytime and unlimited evenings and weekends + unlimited text messaging.

I'm with Fido ... I also have a $25 plan. But for that I get 150 minutes anytime, unlimited evenings and weekends AND unlimited incoming calls anytime. So I can just call people and tell them to call me back and talk as long as I want, for free, anytime I'd like. I may also pay a $6 access fee, but I get that many more minutes for it. AND on top of all that, I get to use the entire Rogers coverage area (larger than telus) for free.
The only incentive you have to get the koodo is if you do a hell of a lot text messaging and very little talk on your cellphone. If that's the case, then yeah, it would give you an advantage because it serves you goals. But I think most people that have cellphones use them to talk rather than text-messaging, that's the point of a cellular phone, anyway, right? Otherwise we'd all have beepers.

This is just all sorts of wrong. What you see as a negative, I see as a positive. To get out of a contract you have to pay either the remainder of the terms balance, or an average of 400 dollars, whichever is HIGHER. To get out of a Koodo plan, you just have to pay for your phone. The most expensive model they have is only like 200 bucks. So how the hell do you figure that koodo has higher fees or higher cell phone prices? Koodo pays off your cell phone for you. If you stay on long enough, it IS FREE.

Again, it's a matter of perspective. Say you want to get a phone from Koodo, you have the option of getting a Motorola KRZR, a motorola phone and a samsung phone. That's it. 3 phones to choose from, all of which without any large features and all of which are flip-phones and only the most expensive one, the KRZR has mp3 playing capability. No Sony Ericson, no Nokia ... no advanced phones of any kind. This may be ok for ones who don't want complicated phones, just something to talk on ... but for those who are brand loyal to Sony or Nokia ... well, they gotta switch the "Hello Moto".

And lets look back at that "tab" system that Koodo has in place to cover your phone cost ... yes, you may get a free or very inexpensive phone, but for that you'd have to stay on their network and use their services. For every phone, you can put $150 of its retail value on the tab, so most phones would come for free, except for the KRZR which would cost $50. As you use your monthly plans, 10% of your bill goes towards paying off the remaining "tab" on your phone. I ran the numbers on that based on your $25 per month fees, so here it is:
If you get the Samsung u410 from them, to cover your phone ($75), you'd have to keep using their services for 30 months, so 2.5 years. If you get the Motorola W385, ($125) you'd have to stay with them for 4.2 years. If you get the Moto KRZR, you have to stay with them for 5 years. Most agreements only run for 3 years.

As for the "remaining of agreement or $400 which is higher", don't know where you got those numbers from, I quote from Fido's website:

An Early Cancellation Fee (ECF) applies to all subscribers with a Fido Agreement, if , for any reason, their service is terminated prior to the end of the Fido Agreement. The ECF is the greater of the (i) $100 or (ii) $20 per month remaining in the Fido Agreement, to a maximum of $400 (plus applicable taxes), and applies for each deactivated phone number.

So yeah, the least you can pay is $100, but it goes to a maximum of $400, no more than that.

But what are we talking about here, basically? When you'll switch from a provider to another, you'd probably do it because your services are not being delivered properly ... aka your calls are dropped and/or signal drops. If those are the problems, you're most likely to encounter them within your first month of use, right? Well, Fido allows its customers who get a service agreement to unsubscribe from their plan, free of charge, within the first 30 days, contingent on them handing back their phone and getting a refund of whatever they already paid for it. Koodo doesn't do that. If you want to try their services, you can't. You have to buy the phone and if you want to switch within the first month ... what will they say? "Pay up, sucker!!"
I find that a bit hard for a brand that has not yet proven any reliability to the market. It may be a subsidiary of Telus, but most people don't know that and it's not apparent in their advertising. Nor is it being said on their own website.
So, do people want to risk getting screwed over for trying lower costs, just because they like text messaging? I find that very unlikely, don't know about you.

Are you saying we should only be limited to Telus or Rogers then because they're the ones who built the network?

Well, now that I found out Koodo is a Telus subsidiary, that may be a moot point indeed. But if I didn't know this at first, how do you think anybody else will know this too? They don't say it on the website, they don't advertise it, thus, nobody associates Koodo with Telus.

And yes, most people should choose one of the companies that built the network, because that's the way the communications market is set up in Canada. It's an oligopoly, lead by the companies that have the networks in place. If you choose anybody else, you're more likely to get screwed over with higher prices and worse service. Why? Barriers of entry. The fact that those networks are owned by very few makes it close to impossible for anyone else to come into the market and compete with them on price or quality.

Look at what's happening to the internet market because of Bell? That may as well happen to the cellphone market soon.

Telus doesn't even offer anything with text for less than 30 bucks a month. So once agian... wrong.

And you confirmed my belief. You got Koodo because you do a massive ammount of text-messaging as opposed to voice communication. So for you, it's great. For you it makes sense, and that's exactly the market they want to go for: people who talk very little and text out of their minds.

But I ask you now: what do most of the people in the cell-phone market do most of the time with their cell-phones? Do they talk or do they text?

You see, the problem in question here is not what you prefer ... because for you Koodo may indeed seem a lot cheeper ... it answers your personal needs and for you it is a very logical choice. But here we're talking about market share and the preferences of the whole population of Canada who have or want to have cellphones. The success of a company in the market is not determined by a very small niche which the company may serve, but the market as a whole.
So they may get the heavy-text-messaging market for themselves, indeed. But the problem is that they probably won't grow from that, and that leaves them with very little profit growth capability. Investors know that, and stock prices will not rise very much. And if there's no investment, there's less growth. Its only way out is if its parent company, Telus, subsidies things for them ... making Koodo a loss-leader to beat back Fido, which is owned by Rogers. Loss leaders in an Oligopoly? Hell, you have to be a bit crazy to do that.