Super Bowl XLI Review of HP Orange County Choppers Ad

For some reason, most people don't really associate bikers with computers. That's why this ad caught me a little off guard on Super Bowl Sunday. I just plain was not expecting it. But why not? It makes perfectly logical sense that almost anyone running a successful business has got plenty of use for a PC.

HP busted through the stereotypes to the contrary by using Orange County Choppers (OCC) to endorse the Hewlett-Packard line of PC's. As founder and owner of OCC, Paul Teutrul does a nice voice-over narration saying, "The computer is all business" as the background sounds of a scooter build in volume. During the ad, the viewer is dragged onto the front fender of a custom designed and built chopper with Teutral driving while different graphics fly at the the camera and Paul wipes imaginary bugs and stuff off his arms.

The animated images of two more choppers pull up on both sides of Theurul as he speaks to the viewer about how they use the computer in the business. The viewer is left to assume the riders of the other bikes are two of Paul's sons who also work at OCC. They are Pauley Jr, the Chief fabricator and Mikey who mostly gets in trouble for slacking. Paul Sr. continues talking about how OCC uses the computer to make videos for their customers, search for designs and graphics and organize the mountains of paperwork they generate while building custom choppers for their very discerning clientelle. He also rats out his boys for downloading millions of songs from the internet.

Teutral finishes by saying the computer is also where they store the millions of crazy ideas that they come up with. As his last word is safely out of his mouth the view pans around to a close up shot of his hand opening the throttle. The camera continues panning toward the rear of the virtual chopper as a graphic of flames seems to emerge from the back of the bike. It really sounds and looks pretty cool the way this entire ad was put together.

A HP graphic and announcer then finish the ad with, "HP. Where the computer is personal again."