AOL apparently is adding media properties faster than Tiger Wood’s is adding mistresses (ZING!), because until today, I hadn’t heard of WalletPop. Anyway, today (or tomorrow, it’s actually dated 12/29/09) posted its “Ad Rant: The 10 worst ads of the decade” (link).  People keep getting on my shit when I remind them that we still have another year in the decade (you don’t start counting things on zero, morons; the “Aughts” wrap up this year, but the decade started with 2001), so I’ll just focus on the ads.

It’s really more like a “top 2 or 3″ because most of these ads are actually pretty well done or at least funny, which can keep you from receiving the icy stare of death I reserve for truly bad ads (you’ll know they’re bad, because they’re on this site, get it?).

Here’s one that was really bad (Lamasil, his #2):

The problem with this one was that it was almost TOO effective.  I honestly remember getting a little sick the first time I saw this, then ran to the doctor to tell him to get the little yellow monsters out of my feet.

Here’s another crappy one from SalesGenie, which was actually their Super Bowl ad awhile back:

Wow, that was about as racially sensitive as a Disney flick.  Who comes by to close the joint down when the leads don’t plan out, the Jews?  How do ads like this even come into existence in this day and age without someone going, “um, too much.”

There were a couple of others that I think I can see why someone wouldn’t like the ads (like the Paris Carl’s Jr. ad, which I wasn’t a fan of because I just don’t think she’s “hot”), but they weren’t really bad ads… they just weren’t for you.

Now I do have to give this site credit for turning me on to an ad I hadn’t seen before from some consumer group that was trying to inform you of the chemical residue found in cleaning products:

See now, that’s just funny stuff.  If they would have run this on Adult Swim at night, I would have laughed my ass off and actually visited the site to see what the hell they were talking about.  Somebody spent some money on this sucker and it should totally still be in rotation.

Anyway, let me know what you think of his list and my views of it… or make a picture using the weird symbols next to the numbers on your keyboard, I really don’t care at this point…

J.

Related posts you might enjoy:

1. AT&T & Verizon: I Thought It Was Called Creative [RANT]
2. WSJ (wha?) rates the best and worst advertising of 2009
3. Almost absolutely NOT the 15 Worst Movie Taglines Ever Written
4. I was afraid something like this would happen: Adweek names “Get a Mac” ads, “Campaign of the Decade”