Autoconnection, which is a car sales showroom in Norfolk -Virginia/USA- decided to publicize itself in a big way at the Super Bowl 2013 and to that end it decided to film a thirty-second long parody of the famous annual running of the bulls from Pamplona. It was decided that the runners would run in front of Bull…dogs. And the explanation of such an idea lies in the fact that the showroom pet is a bulldog called Mack Mack, which normally just appears as a publicity stunt in the social networks. Consequently, the creative team behind the TV spot decided to play with the fact that the name of the dog breed was not unlike the word bulls, i.e. they created The Running of the Bull..Dogs. However, the idea of the TV commercial is that, instead of being chased by a dangerous Bulldog, you run in order to look for Mack Mack, who can offer you the best second-hand car prices and the best financing deals to pay for the car.
The director of the TV spot is Derrick Borte and he explained that “Contracting the actors was pretty simple as most of them work at Autoconnection, and even the person who first came up with the idea works there. Something much more difficult was trying to find 15 English bulldogs and their respective owners who were prepared to spend a long day in the open air having to put up with take after take… It helped a lot to have encouraging calls through Facebook and Craiglist”, states Borte on the web page of Autoconnection. There is a clear reference made to Pamplona and the running of the bulls from the creative team of the TV commercial, although the filming was made in a Street in Norfolk. Then there are also some indirect references to Pamplona such as a series of posters advertising bullfights and one is in fact from Pamplona Sanfermin fiestas in Sanfermin Fiestas in 1904.
