Skydiving, Part Two

Who thought my petty complaints about a cliché-ridden, gratuitous college recruitment ad would gain such attention?

A few weeks ago I transcribed and made fun of a recruitment ad for Dakota State University. The ad used several incredibly tired clichés, featured odd angles and horrible acting, and wasted 10 seconds of valuable air-time and consumer attention with a shot of the announcer skydiving. Yeah, skydiving.

Since then, I’ve received several comments – all from DSU students – on how they, too, feel this ad is, well, pretty lame. I’ve gotten e-mails from concerned students who feel their school is losing whatever luster it had before this commercial aired.

And now, for those of you who weren’t lucky enough to see it, it’s on YouTube.

Full disclosure: I’ve been to Madison, SD once. I rode on the 1997 MS 150 Bike Tour with Kerrie and two co-workers – 75 miles up to Madison on day one, 75 miles back. We stayed in the DSU dorms – my first experience with a college dorm room, actually. And that, my friends, is my entire DSU/Madison scope of knowledge.

Upon a second and third viewing, I realize that this commercial isn’t so horrible – just head scratchingly odd. There are worse commercials out there. Much worse. For instance, the Relay South Dakota commercials. Or the classic Flea Market Montgomery “Just Like a Mini Mall” spot.

But the fact that the DSU student community took the liberty of passing my post around and then commenting shows that I’m not alone in scratching my head.

With that, we’ll move on. There will be much worse commercials in the future, I’m sure. I only hope that DSU’s won’t be among them.

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(EDIT: In the 15 minutes it took me to post this, the video was removed by the user. I hope to have it back up soon.)

(EDIT #2: The video is back up.)