Of all the ads nominated by Consumerist readers for the title of Worst Holiday Ad of 2010, the Hyundai spots featuring Pomplamoose have been the most vociferously defended in the comments. Alas, it looks like the spots still had enough detractors to push Hyundai into the winner’s circle.

That being said, it was an incredibly close race with thousands of votes cast and Hyundai’s too-cute twosome edging out runner-up Target by less than two percent. In fact, it was a tight race overall — each of the top four vote-getters earned over 20% of the reader vote.

The only ad to escape mass hatred from you, the readers of Consumerist, was the spot from Overstock.com that features employees of the website abusing “Jingle Bells.”

So why did that commercial, which committed the cardinal sin of substituting lyrics about a website for those of a well-established holiday classic, survive while Hyundai received rotten tomatoes for commercials featuring versions of “Jingle Bells” and other holiday tunes with lyrics intact?

Judging by the negative comments and e-mails we’ve received about the Hyundai ads, the deciding factor seems to be a matter of frequency. A large number of readers noted that they liked, or at least didn’t mind, the Pomplamoose ads when they first began to air, but that the omnipresence of these commercials on prime time TV and during football games turned ambivalence to anger.

If we here in the Consumerist Cave had been betting people (We’re not… unless you know of a sure thing), the Best Buy elf was our pre-vote favorite to take home the prize. Oh well, we’ll win our money back when Worst Company In America kicks off in a few months.

Thanks to all who voted and thanks to those who didn’t vote, because… well, it’s just a silly poll.

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