Is this the decade of the Pug insofar as commercials are concerned?

Last year, we heard about “Rudy, the Picky Pug” in a Fresh Pet commercial below:

As the story goes, Rudy’s owner, Mary Ann, wrote to Freshpet in early in 2017 to share how 12 year old Rudy suddenly stopped eating. When Rudy showed no interest in Mary Ann’s son’s homecoming, she became alarmed. On the verge of taking Rudy to the vet, Mary Ann’s husband remembered the success they’d had in using Freshpet to hide a pill for Rudy. He loved the food, but when the roll was finished, the family simply hadn’t gotten any more.  With this latest round of concern, however, a new roll was bought, cut up in a bowl, and put in front of Rudy. Within 20 minutes, they had their old Rudy back.

Then came the commercial for Hotels.com. It was hard not to notice any dog being gently thumped upon in the Pug Bongos commercial, but even more difficult not to notice that they were Pugs. Something about those faces……

More recently, the breed shows up as part of a family in Verizon new TV Commercial where Thomas Middleditch struts around a stage announcing that family members can get different plans:

Our favorite of the lot, however, may be Geico’s “Excessive Use of Packing Bubbles” ad in which an apartment-seeking man has figured out how to reduce the stress of home hunting: Bubble wrapping everything, including his Pug.

 

 

 

An early indicator that Pugs might be an advertising “thing” came in 2010 with this ad:

Nor is advertising’s love affair with the breed limited to American culture. Check out the Dutch ad below:

Had enough? No? The next commercial will fix that. Pug or not, the Mountain Dew commercial that first aired during the Super Bowl disturbed almost everyone who saw it:

We’ll stop now.