TED Issues Open Challenge to the Global Advertising Community: Create an Ad Worth Spreading

NEW YORK, September 28, 2010 - Inspired by the viral success of TEDTalks and expanding on the
conference's mission of Ideas Worth Spreading, TED today announces its Ads
Worth Spreading Challenge, a contest that serves as an open invitation to the
global advertising community to reinvent, inspire and engage audiences with a
new definition of what advertising can mean in the digital age, using TED.com
as its platform.

"We want to encourage development of ads-with-a-difference," says TED's
curator, Chris Anderson. "Ads that engage our audience authentically,
intelligently, delightfully. Ads that people will want to share because, like
the rest of TED, they encapsulate ideas worth spreading."

TED invites the business community to submit their most forward-looking
video campaigns to the contest by January 10, 2011. A judging panel will
select up to 10 winning video campaigns, which will premiere at TED2011,
February 28-March 4, 2011, for the gathered audience of 1500+ thought
leaders, and will appear on TED.com for free for one week in March.

During the week of March 21-27, 2011, the winning campaigns will occupy
every available postroll ad space on TED.com, garnering roughly nearly 7M in
free advertising impressions. In addition to appearing as post-roll after
TEDTalks, each ad will also have a permanent page on TED.com, allowing the ad
to be rated, shared, commented on and linked to, perhaps earning large
numbers of additional views.

Submissions to the Ads Worth Spreading Challenge must be made in the form
of a video, which can vary in length from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and
submitted in a common digital, downloadable format as detailed in our
submission guidelines.

Videos must be promotional in nature, but can promote a company, cause,
product or idea. It can promote a product, company or cause, but is likely to
do so indirectly rather than directly — for example, by showcasing the
values, motivations and questions of the organization's people. The ads may
be commercial, PSAs or self-promotion.

The campaign should be new — created between January 2010 and January
2011. Ideally, it should be new creative, but it is possible to submit
campaigns that appeared elsewhere. Submissions must be received by midnight
EST, January 10, 2011.

All entrants into the Ads Worth Spreading Challenge will be notified as
to whether their video has been selected by Friday, February 25, 2011.

Full details and submission guidelines may be found here:
www.ted.com/adsworthspreading

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started
as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support
those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. At TED, the world's
leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18
minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have
included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard
Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel
Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Two major TED events are
held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring in Long Beach,
California (along with a simulcast, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and
TEDGlobal is held each summer in Oxford, UK. TED's media initiatives include
TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, the Open TV Project, bringing
TEDTalks to global broadcast networks, and the Open Translation Project,
which provides English subtitles and interactive transcripts and allows any
TEDTalk to be translated into any language by volunteers worldwide. TED has
established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals win "one wish
to change the world"; TEDx, which supports individuals and groups in hosting
local, self-organized events around the world; and the TED Fellows program,
helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the
TED community and amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and
activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at
facebook.com/TED

TEDWomen, "Shaping the Future," will be held December 7-8, 2010, in
Washington DC, with partner events worldwide. TED2011, "The Rediscovery of
Wonder," will be held February 28-March 4, 2011, in Long Beach, California,
along with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs, California. TEDGlobal
2011 will be held in the UK in July 2011.

    Contact:
    Laura Galloway
    Galloway Media Group
    +1-212-260-3708
    laura@gallowaymediagroup.com

Laura Galloway, Galloway Media Group, +1-212-260-3708, laura at gallowaymediagroup.com