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Hail, Stanford, Hail
Even Beethoven might not recognize the da da da DUM of his Fifth Symphony as performed, excruciatingly, by a long-haired, leather-clad “keytar” player in one of three 30-second TV spots that ran during Stanford football games last fall. And neither may a few Stanford alumni understand why their beloved hymn, “Hail, Stanford, Hail,” was used as the punch line of the hilarious tongue-in-cheek series.
“All of the other schools put their promos through what I call the ‘blander,’” Bruce Miller, MBA ’75, the ads’ creator, told the industry chronicle Adweek. Miller, who is CEO of Dailey & Associates, described the run-of-the-mill freebie National Collegiate Athletics Association football promo: “There’s the obligatory shot of the quad, the earnest professor lecturing an attentive class, and plenty of ivy.” Miller focused instead on the quirky but proud heritage of Stanford, which cheers its not-actually-marching band with almost as much zeal as it touts its 27 Nobel laureates.
“For over 100 years, Stanford University’s devotion to knowledge through exploration has paved the way for world-changing inventions, inventions like the FM synthesizer,” Miller’s narrator intones as the dreadful music plays in the background. “By modulating the amplitude and frequency of wave forms, this music synthesis produced simple timbres that would later replicate entire orchestras and spawn generations of musical exploration. Hail, Stanford, hail.”
Cool, Stanford, cool.