Interactive Koodo ad at Peel metro
Last weekend, some metro station platform ads were replaced by a television screen inviting people to “train” with some Koodo-branded games. Koodo, you’ll recall, is the Telus-owned “discount” cellphone service which competes with Rogers’s Fido and Bell’s Solo Mobile services. It unexplicably uses cheesy 80s workout clichés as the basis for its branding.
A user interacts with a Koodo ad at Berri-UQAM metro station
Lo and behold, it worked. People on a metro platform waiting for a train are a notoriously bored bunch (even if they’re in a hurry). Shiny things with buttons will quickly find people willing to press them.
Unfortunately, the games themselves weren’t that good. In fact, one wasn’t even a game, it was just a menu filled with information about Koodo’s cellphone plans. The only actual “game” is a Where’s Waldo-style search game that requires the user to “scroll” through the map because it doesn’t all fit on the screen.
The game had clearly not been usability tested, because I couldn’t figure out how the scrolling worked. Tapping near the corner caused it to slowly scroll in that direction by about an inch. Dragging a finger toward the corner caused the screen to quickly scroll in that direction and then quickly scroll back. Dragging a finger away from the corner caused about the same thing to happen. (UPDATE Aug. 27: I’m not the only one to notice this failure.)
Also:
Unexpected click gives a 404 error
I’m not quite sure how I did this, but I somehow created a new tab in Internet Explorer (which this apparently runs on) and sent it to a page which doesn’t exist.
Closeup of Koodo ad 404 error
So apparently these ads are running on Windows servers using a two-year-old version of the Apache web server. (On the plus side, the system resets itself after a minute or two of inactivity)
I have to give Koodo credit for this one. After all, I’m blogging about it, which was the point. But it doesn’t make me want to get a Koodo phone plan any more.
10 Comments
It makes me wonder if the STM couldn’t devise some kind of interactive help service, a touch-screen version of their Tous Azimuts. But then they would probably find a way to screw it up.
You 404′d their clever little ad. That is hilarious.
Seeing that Tous Azimut was brought up, it does need a serious upgrade. A touch screen version is a good idea, but the online one needs to be revamped to be able to save addresses, locations, results, etc.
that looks like a firefox tab…. hmm…
They stole the name from World of Warcraft’s mount called the Kodo. Lazy bastards cant come up with a name, I bet there to lazy to even help there customers. (I also bet they all play World of Warcraft)
I just got a phone for my wife from Koodo, our requirements was International texting and this was offered to us for an extra fee. However few days later and my wife is able to send International text, but could not receive from any of her friends around the world. So we are very disappointed, we were sold on a feature that does not work. I will try to see if Koodo have any solution for us, it looks like I have to cancel this cell phone account.
#
We have returned the cellphone and cancelled everything. However, what amazed me that the representative at booth is dam insisting that International text does work. I guess it is a sheer ignorance no more or less. I informed him that we have been using text on daily basis for over 5 years with all kind of providers. We switched to Virgin mobile cellphone and she have to managed to send and receive text from all her friends located in HongKong, Taiwan, Singapore and Manila. Koodo should not be selling the public Canadians services that does not exist, this is a total violation of code of ethics, a total scam and theft.
Hey there,
I work for Koodomobile. We haven’t had any issues with international text messaging yet. And you don’t have to pay an extra fee. The countries you listed we have agreements with as per our website. I know you returned your phone, but it would be great if you could tell us what specific country you had trouble receiving texts from. That way we can look into to see if there is a problem. Not all providers in all countries do we have a contract with though. Thanks for your help!
Bernard
Their name, color, ads, games.. basically whole image gives me the bad type of chills. I’m with Koodo and I somehow feel embarassed about this company.
Can’t they come up with something that actually wants you to spread the word?
Their plans are decent at most, anything else is nothing to wow about.
I’m wondering if i can send text messages to Iraq, if they can reply back and how much it would cost me
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