TED Initiatives » Ads Worth Spreading

Here are the 10 winners of our first Ads Worth Spreading competition. With this competition, we're seeking to reverse the trend of online ads being aggressively forced on users. We want to nurture ads so good you choose to watch. On TED.com, ads run after our talks, not before. This means they can run longer than the TV-standard 30 seconds. And that's the key! In 2-3 minutes, there's enough time to really tell a story, share an idea, make an authentic human connection, become unforgettable. Instead of ambush, they offer pleasurable, intelligent engagement. We invite you to view, comment, rate, share -- and see all the new entries or enter your own Ad Worth Spreading on our official channel on YouTube here »

  • The World’s Smallest Stop-motion Character Animation

    Nokia

    The World’s Smallest Stop-motion Character Animation

    01:37
    We love how this ad brings showcase and entertainment together, demonstrating a new smartphone's imaging capabilities through a magical, microscopic animation. (Fun fact: this ad holds a Guinness World Record as the smallest stop-motion animated film.)

Winners

Honorable mentions

How we choose the winners

A multi-disciplinary panel of experts reviews each submission, and selects the winning ads. We look for ads that tell a captivating story, offer an idea that makes the world a better place, humanize the company/creator, use technology in ways we've never seen, speak authentically, engage the audience in solving a problem or answering a question, delight us with visual wonder ... More »

What winners receive

We do all we can to give the winning ads a little glory. We unveil the winners from the main stage at TED. Then we feature the ads on TED.com, both on dedicated, share-able pages, and as post-roll ads that run for free, for one week. More »

TED thanks our Ads Worth Spreading industry supporters: YouTube, AICP, NiceSpots, Art Directors Club, The One Club/One Show, 4A's, IAA, IAB and Contagious Magazine.