When people tell friends about products and services that turn out to be crappy, the relationship suffers, trust is eroded away. That same erosion of trust happens to companies that associate with or promote low quality products and services (ads).
Ads like those pictured above are not doing readers any favors. One might even say, ads like these damage the brand of The Wall Street Journal.
*The screenshot of ads above were from the right sidebar of the Wall Street Journal website on 2/28/2011 at 12:15 P.M. EST.