While there are certainly some companies that did a terrific job with surviving the current economic downturns, others haven’t been quite as successful with their marketing campaigns. Listed below, in no particular order, are ten of the biggest marketing flops of 2008.

1. Yahoo! Buzz – Largely marketed as a viable alternative to Digg as the social news site of choice, Yahoo! Buzz never did catch on. At least Yahoo! is still afloat, for now.

2. Sarah Palin – You betcha! While the young female governor from Alaska initially injected some new energy into the U.S. Republican party, John McCain’s choice for running mate ultimately dug their campaign into the ground.

3. Canada iPhone Launch – While everything seems to have worked out in the end, the early data plans offered by Rogers were met with a lot of anger and frustration. Thankfully, Rogers and Fido eventually responded with plans that were a little more reasonable, but not before receiving all sorts of negative attention.

4. Max Payne – I don’t know what Mark Wahlberg was thinking when he said that this movie (based on the video game of the same name) was better than The Dark Knight. Seeing how everyone was still heavily enamored by Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, Wahlberg probably shouldn’t have brought up the comparison.

5. The New Fido – In November, Fido relaunched itself as the New Fido, ushering in more affordable plans, cheaper phones, and the dismissal of the system access fee. The marketing hasn’t been quite as good with the yellow logo (dog urine?) and utter lack of exciting handsets.

6. PlayStation Home – Sony seems to be a little late to the party with on-screen avatars. The Wii has the Miis, the Xbox 360 got Avatars, and then PlayStation Home finally made it into public beta only to be received with tons of bugs and minimal character customization. It may become more robust and exciting with time, but for now, it’s a sad clone of the Sims.

7. Google Android – While it may grow as more handsets become available, the launch of the T-Mobile G1 (the first phone with Google Android) has not been quite as exciting as T-Mobile and Google had hoped. It certainly didn’t generate the same kind of excitement as the launch of the iPhone.

8. Pownce – A microblogging platform that competed directly against Twitter, Pownce found itself closing its doors on December 15. I think we’d all agree that Twitter won this battle… by far.

9. Helio – Don’t call it a phone. Don’t call it a phone company. In fact, don’t call it at all, because this youth-oriented MVNO from the United States got swallowed up by Virgin Mobile USA in 2008. And I thought Helio showed promise.

10. The Sharper Image – Once known as the home of massaging chairs and useless gadgets, this kitschy store closed its doors for good after an utter lack of sales for quite some time. I hear it may be back as a virtual brand though.