Citi Commercial:
During this whole commercial, a son narrates his adventures with his dad in Norway. Folk music is playing in the background.
While a man says “So I asked my dad where he wanted to go for his 60th birthday. Norway, he said. The land of our ancestors.” Camera pans towards ship on the water. There are waves up close and there are mountains in the background. It cuts a tiny bit closer to the actual ship shortly after.
It zooms in on a father, who is older with gray hair and a beard, and son, who has dark hair and a beard, on the ship talking and smiling. The father is standing in front of the son and gestures while he talks. The son looks at him and smiles.
The father and son then are shown walking on a street towards the camera while consulting a guide book. Other people walk past them on the street
Camera cuts to son taking a picture of father by a guard to a house.
Pans to shot of mountains; camera looks shaky like it’s a home video.
Then shows father and son in a large room looking at a very large monument of a boat.
Then the camera zooms in on a Citi card being handed over a bar. This is the only shot without the father in it with the son.
The son has just ordered a round of drinks and carries them back to the table for his father. They make a toast to each other and to some other people at their table. There are many people in the shot but it focuses on the two men getting their drinks of beer.
Waiter serves the two food. Father and son are eating together at a local restaurant. Camera zooms in on their unappetizing fish meal, then zooms out to son pushing fish away.
Shows more mountains with the father and son standing on a ledge. The father is gesturing at the scenery. Camera looks professional again.
Cuts to father and son rowing away from camera on river with comical knit sweaters on. They are talking and look to be struggling with the oars.
Cuts to father and son taking a picture of themselves in front of a church.. They are posed right next to each other. They look at the camera quickly.
Faraway camera angle shows son and dad run into lake and jump in water. They stand up quickly and run back.
Shows dad dancing around with a woman in a Norwegian dress. He is surrounded by other women and dancers doing a similar dance while his son looks on and he laughs. There are other people in the background walking by. The camera is back in the “home video” looking style.
Camera then pans to a shot of the dad and son walking past book shelves.
They then turn a page in a large looking book and discover that they are actually not from Norway, but are Swedish. The son says, “And we discovered that we were actually Swedish.” At the moment that they discover this the camera pulls upwards to show their amazed faces as they stand at a desk reading documents.
The camera then pans quickly past a dock with rolling water in the background and cuts to an arm (the son’s) handing over a Citi card and reaching across the counter with it to purchase new tickets to Sweden. He says “Two tickets to Stockholm.” This is the other only shot where the son is alone in the picture without the father.
The son shows his father the tickets and briskly walks away while saying “Let’s go,” and the father smiles and laughs. They are now back in the picture together.
The father and son walk up the dock and board the ship with other passengers.
An accented voice replaces the son’s voice and tells how Citi helps people accomplish their adventures.
The camera pans to another ship embarking on the water
The screen then darkens to show Citi’s logo and it says, “What’s your story?” and “We’ll help you write it.”
HP “Lauren” Hands Commercial
The ad starts out with a bright yellow screen and the words “Windows… LIFE WITHOUT WALLS” on it; there is a windows logo in between the two phrases.
Camera cuts to shot of a girl’s torso. You can see her long dark and curly hair; she is wearing a blue dress with a light yellow ruffled sweater. She has a necklace on and some bracelets and a ring. Her nails are painted dark pink.
The girl opens a laptop that is hanging in mid air right in front of her.
She explains how she “was in a windows commercial and got a great HP7 computer.” She then touches the computer and it spins around towards her.
Out of the computer spirals a diagram of DNA and some scientific terms. She uses both hands to pull out pictures, a drawing of a pencil, and a couple other words like “thesis” and “biosynthesis” and a diagram of planets.
She spins the computer screen back towards the audience and pull open a window with her hands that has a movie on it, while she explains that she loves watching movies on her computer. The lights in the background dim.
She then pushes the movie away and pulls up a computer chat program with a man on it. He looks young, had dark hair and a beard. He says “Hi Lauren.” He is wearing a vest and tie and there is an office setting behind him.
She tells him that she’s in another HP commercial and he smiles.
The man disappears and is replace by a video of a red haired women in a green scarf buying a computer and then in a parking lot receiving cash. The woman laughs. The girl then closes her laptop and says that life is crazy, but she’s still a PC and she loves her HP. She then hugs her computer with both arms.
The camera angle then switches for the first time and shows that we have been watching Lauren on a HP laptop the whole time. The laptop we have been watching on spins around and the background on it changes from Lauren to a blue and gold background. We are told to “Choose the laptop that’s right for you” and the price pops up. A man’s voice tells us some computer capabilities and gives us a number to call or a website to visit. The Best Buy and Walmart logos both appear next to the price.
The screen then switches to a black silhouetted arm dropping the “hp” logo on to a black screen. Underneath it, the words “The computer is personal again” appear.
