Animated banners online annoy me. I can just about cope with one on a page, but when bombarded with several like at once, as you are on many previously very user-friendly sites (Digital Spy being a case in point), I tend to get somewhat het up.

Imagine, then, my amusement at discovering this gem of an animating banner at the top of one page on a website which shall remain nameless:

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Edit: Unfortunately, legal eagles at The National Lottery have insisted that I remove the image that previously appeared here. The image contained a picture of a clearly broken banner, cyclicing between text saying “This null it’s an…” and “estimated jackpot of £0 million”. I’m sorry that I’ve had to spoil your fun! (01/09/2006)
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The banner animated between those four images, though each image was considerably larger than as reproduced above.

It’s certainly an original marketing strategy, but I’m not sure advertising the most likely payout will be terribly successful. Slight improvement over those awful Billy Connelly lottery ads from a couple of years back, though.