How a Commercial Brought Us Max – National Dog Day

In honor of National Dog Day, here’s the story of how Max came to be part of my family:

6 months after I started working at Fusion, converted by the cuteness of a long-haired chihuahua named Coco, I knew I wanted a dog. I just had to convince Kent. Once he was on board (it didn’t take much), talk quickly shifted to what breed we wanted.

Honestly, I don’t remember all of our criteria, but I distinctly recall both of us at some point mentioning the “cute dog in the toothpaste commercial.” I’ve tried to find this commercial several times over the years, with no luck. The whole commercial was red and white and filmed like a musical, with the running theme of choosing the whitest item in the bunch. (It must have been for some new whitening toothpaste). At one point, a group of dogs is shown, and when one is plucked from the group, it’s the fuzziest super white dog. We both thought it was the cutest dog we’d ever seen, and liked the fact that it wasn’t a common breed. We literally googled “white dog from toothpaste commercial” and eventually figured out it was an American Eskimo. More googling revealed that there was an American Eskimo breeder in Manitoba, and within 2 months, we brought Max home.

Max, the day we brought him home from the breeder

 

To this day, we can never remember what toothpaste brand it was (Colgate? Crest?), but we will always remember the face of those smiling dogs. So, lesson learned marketing peeps, if it’s a brand recall you’re going after, don’t feature cute dogs your ad!