Alaina Thompson Voted Little Miss Coppertone Contest Winner, Will Appear As Girl In Sunscreen Ad

After 60 years of iconic advertising, Coppertone held a contest to choose a new Little Miss Coppertone, the blonde girl in pigtails seen on ads with a dog biting her swimsuit, and the results are in: five-year-old Alaina Thompson from Winter Haven, Fla. is the winner.

Thompson was one of thousands of other girls who entered the contest on Facebook to assume the role as the iconic Coppertone girl beginning in 2013.

Owned by Merck, Coppertone first presented the advertisement in 1953, nine years after the bronzing sunscreen formula debuted. Conceptualized by the Tally Embry Advertising agency in Florida, the ad shows a little girl, clad in pigtails with matching ribbon and swimsuit bottoms. The ad also shows a black cocker spaniel mischievously pulling down the girl's bottoms exposing her pasty posterior lighter than the rest of her skin beneath her swim suit.

According to records, the original ad was destroyed in a fire and prompted artist Joyce Ballantyne Brand to draw a new little girl in 1959 based on her daughter, Cheri Brand.

As an iconic image, many appeared in commercials as the real-life Coppertone girl, including Jodie Foster at three-years-old in her acting debut.

But in 1993, when Cheri Brand was much too old to be the Coppertone girl, the company held a contest in Orlando, Fla. choosing four-year-old Alexis Durgee out of the competitors to be the next model.

According to Yahoo News, Coppertone held the contest again "in an effort to bring a modern look to the product's ad campaign."

For being chosen as the winner of the Little Miss Coppertone contest, Thompson was awarded a seven-day, six-night family vacation in addition to a model gig in the print ad.

"We were over the moon [about winning]," her mother, Kimberlee Thompson, told Yahoo. "We're absolutely thrilled."

Now that she's officially Little Miss Coppertone, one can't help but ask what Alaina Thompson's future plans are. The company asked what she would like to be when she grows up, to which Thompson replied, "All kinds of workers, like a 'hair saloner,' a McDonald's girl, or a dance teacher."