Old Navy’s Mascot Search arrived in San Francisco in May. Outdoor ads throughout the city encouraged dog owners to visit the Old Navy web site to enter their pet to win a guest appearance in Old Navy’s commercials.

Ads were supported with casting calls in area parks.

At the site dog owners could upload pics of their pooch, browse the competition, sign up for offers from Old Navy, and muck around.

Judging from the numbers displayed in the OldNavy/Magic site photo archive, Old Navy recorded over 105,000 entries by May 30, and no doubt sparked ten times as much word of mouth amongst dog-crazy pet owners.

Few affinity groups are as emotionally charged as pet owners — especially here in San Francisco where dog owners and parents often clash heatedly over the right run their pets freely in local parks.

By tapping into our fondness for Fido, Old Navy has crafted an impressive promotional strategy that fosters plenty of positive brand associations at just the right time — the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer holidays.

Surely, it is no coincidence that several pint-sized members of the Mortarmark clan dropped a couple hundo on shorts and T’s at Old Navy before disappearing to camp this weekend.

It is one of the ironies of Old Navy parent Gap Corp. that Old Navy is still so relevant when the flagship company has fallen so far from grace in the eyes of America’s consumers.

One would hope the magic might rub off.

Although entries have closed, you can still vote for your favorite Old Navy pooch here.

The opinions expressed in  Mortablog  are not necessarily those of the author or anyone else at the Mortar
for that matter.  Just who owns them is kind of unclear really.  If you
do find someone who will own up to them for sure, let us know.