HP's latest ad is a back-to-school themed tearjerker about a father/daughter relationship....and a printer.

The spot is the story of a doting ad whose daughter is about to enter sixth grade. As he gets her up for her first day of school, she's showing all the signs of a pre-teen who finds her father just about the most embarrassing thing ever. She looks horrified when he stands next to her in the bathroom, virtually flinches when mom takes the obligatory back-to-school photo of them together and hardly even says goodbye as she sets off down the road to middle school.

Dad, meanwhile, has surreptitiously printed out the photo quickly on the HP Sprocket, a tiny printer that can print out snaps from your smartphone instantly, and slipped it into her lunchbox. But even when she finds it at lunchtime, she quickly hides it from her friends. The inevitable heartwarming reveal comes later, when her father arrives home -- still, apparently, ignored by his little girl. He goes into her room, nostalgically picks up a snowglobe and slumps, clearly feeling defeated, onto the lower bunk -- only to find a display of photos, including this morning's Sprocket print and all the past snaps of her with her father on the first day of school.

The spot is by Giant Spoon and was directed by Rudi Schwab. While HP is following a well-worn path with an emotive parent-child relationship tearjerker this year, it's a well-crafted effort, with the product playing an important, yet unobtrusive role in the story. And besides, it's a good excuse for a back-to-school cry as the kids head out the door into September.