How to get people to look at an online ad: tiny animation.

I hate any kind of flashing ad on a website. (I wish my current Blogad would hold still.) But a new trick I've noticed on web ads that totally works on me is to have an apparently static ad more just a tiny bit. You sort of notice it and think: did that move? Then you look at it a while -- you actually gaze at it -- and then it moves again, giving you a nice little sense of confirmation. You don't feel antagonistic to the ad for making you look. You form an odd, subtle bond with the image. Often, it will be a face that just turns slightly. Or maybe I'm losing my mind! Are you seeing these ads too? I like them, because when you stare at them and they move again, you think: good, I'm not losing my mind. That did move. Unless it didn't, and I'm really....

UPDATE: Email:

Mostly, I'm inclined to agree with regarding the "nice little sense of confirmation", with one glaring exception: a website (I think it's "lowermybills.com") has been advertising mortgage refinancing on Foxnews.com's banner ads. Their ads feature hideously elongated animals (I've recently seen a deer, and a dachshund) with what I can only assume are tattoos of the abbreviated state names on their sides, so that you can click your particular state and get your *incredible* loan APR. These things look like they've been pulled through a taffy machine. As if that weren't disturbing enough, the designers decided that their ads would look more believable if they animated these things to look like they're breathing. So the misshapen bodies of these things bloat up and shrink down about once a second. It's so creepy, I pretty much can't take my eyes off it when they're on the screen, which (I suppose) is the whole purpose of the thing in the first place. But there's no sense of confirmation... just a wave of stomach-churning nausea at the horrible retro-webbiness of it all.

Advertisers seem to think getting your attention is enough, but clearly it isn't. You don't want people nauseated by the product. There should be great and beautiful advertisements. Some TV ads have become beautiful -- both the images and the music. I stop the TiVo fastforwarding and watch commercials sometimes.