Worst 9/11 Ads for September 11 10-Year Anniversary

by NowPublic Staff | September 2, 2011 at 08:49 am

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9/11 Ads Will Never Be Classy. Here Are Some of the Worst September 11 Ads Ever.

There is quite a bit of hand-wringing in the advertising world about when and how to leverage 9/11 for marketing purposes. We can save Madison Avenue a lot of hassle by telling them that the answer is "never", but what would be the fun in that?

We don't think that there is a classy way to sell a product of service using the deaths of thousands of innocent people, which isn't that controversial a stance. Still, the marketers try and try. Below you can see a roundup of tacky and tasteless 9/11 ads from recent years. Let the righteous indignation begin!

USA Discounters has an ad which features the Declaration of Independence in the form of the Twin Towers. ಠ_ಠ
Barker/DZP pulled an ad for a law firm specializing in 9/11-related health lawsuits which featured a firefighter that wasn't actually at Ground Zero.
DDB Brasil's ad for WWF, which featured a swarm of planes descending on Lower Manhattan. WWF tried to deny that it ever approved the ad, but it did.
DDB New Zealand's ad for ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), which depicted the Twin Towers as burning cigarettes. Just... no. The comparison makes no sense anyway.
Saatchi & Saatchi's 9/11 ad for Courrier (French market): They should have anticipated the backlash from their "learn to anticipate" image.
Saatchi & Saatchi China drafted an ad for Lego: Rebuild It". Lego did not approve it, and was furious.
An osteoarthritis ad? Really? Yeah, really. Really dumb.
Budweiser did a 9/11 ad in 2006, which only aired once. Still the Clydesdales are the wrong image for this sort of thing.

Consultant J. Walker Smith's advice seems painfully obvious, except for the fact that it is widely ignored:

“We’ve been saying to people, there’s probably no right way to do this,” said J. Walker Smith, executive chairman at the Futures Company consultancy, which is to release this month a report on public attitudes toward 9/11.
“If I were a marketer, I would let the moment pass,” Mr. Smith said. “Anything you do could be seen as self-serving or disrespectful.”

Okay, maybe there's one 9/11 ad that squeaks by. It's for the 9/11 memorial itself. Even still, the heartstring-tugging music is unnecessary: if you don't think that September 11th was a day of tragedy already, then the music will not change your mind.

Post links to any atrocious 9/11 ads we may have missed below. If you work in advertising, and you think you have a good idea for a 9/11 themed ad... you are mistaken.