Question: In the marketing business, what is a “nurdle”?
Answer: A nurdle is the wavy, carefully designed blob of toothpaste shown on a toothbrush in virtually all toothpaste ads and packaging. It never quite looks like the unsightly toothpaste blob you smear on your brush at home, because you’re not surrounded by professional toothpaste photographers and marketers. Perhaps the earliest known published use of “nurdle” for toothpaste was in a 1968 advertisement for the now-defunct brand Vote. The ad included the tagline, “A nurdle a day keeps the dragon away” (with “dragon” implying “bad breath”). Decades later, in the 1990s, the American Dental Association adopted the term “nurdle” in its literature to explain the proper amount of toothpaste to put on a brush.
