You'll like this: here's TED's top ten video-ads worth spreading

25/3/2011 | Cool Design | Paul | No Comments

Ever heard of TED? If so, you can skip this opening gambit and go straight to the videos below.

If not, let us introduce you to TED…and then you can enjoy the veritable visual extravaganza.

TED stands for technology, entertainment and design. The body is a non-profit organisation devoted to ideas that are worth spreading. It launched initially in 1984 as a conference to bring people from the TED industries together and it has blossomed from there.

Along with two annual conferences – the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh (UK) each summer, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

So, the ultimate goal of TED is to foster the spread of great ideas.

Between 28th September 2010 and February 7th 2011, TED launched a contest called ‘Ads Worth Spreading’. It’s fairly self-explanatory, but the following criteria were issued as guidelines for submissions. Eligible videos must:

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
Engage the audience in solving a problem or answering a question
Be hilariously funny, ingeniously clever, highly engaging
Delight the audience with visual wonder
Amplify passion rather than ambush it
Speak authentically
Elevate the craft to improve online advertising
Feature a moving call to action
Deserve the passionate attention of the world’s online community
Serve a fundamental purpose of promoting a company, cause or idea

The winners were announced in early March. So if you haven’t had a chance to view these yet, here’s the top ten videos worth spreading. These are all tantalising, spellbinding or otherwise awesome.

Enjoy, and do feel free to spread these, they’re definitely worth it…