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Microsoft has launched the Microsoft Advertising Story Awards, tasking marketers from 30 countries with submitting a campaign idea for a brand or non-profit using Microsoft Advertising’s storytelling platforms.

Microsoft Advertising has created an online hub to house and share videos from Chevrolet’s Chevrolet Route 66 global filmmaker contest launched back in June, writes Steve Mullins. The car brand’s campaign attracted close to 200 submissions from 32 countries, and the competition’s clips can now be viewed on the web in nine markets.

midem has unveiled the 10 finalists in the midem Marketing Campaign Competition to identify the most innovative and creative use of music in a marketing campaign. Those shortlisted include Converse Rubber Tracks presented by Cornerstone and Converse, Carte Musique presented by Euro RSCG C&O and The Hours, and The Vaccines Wetsuit Instagram Video presented by Anomaly.

TED has announced that five agencies entering the Ads Worth Spreading initiative will be randomly selected for a visit, with the TED team curating a special session and meeting one-on-one with each agency. These visits – slated the first half of 2012 – are designed to spark deeper conversations between TED and the global advertising and marketing community.

McKinsey has been busy crowdsourcing, and over the past couple of months has been calling for 60-second videos to showcase innovative social projects, says Steve Mullins. The move elicited 150 clips from 30 countries and the public has been given the opportunity to vote on them.

Red Bull is looking for help to sort out the best canimations. Canimations? “We launched a search for supremely talented animators, and asked them to show us what they could do with just their imagination and our blue and silver can,” the brand says. And now Red Bull wants the public jury to go online to Canimation Gallery, view the entries, and vote for the best.

As part of its Go Forth campaign, Levi’s has teamed up with the American Film Institute to get creators, makers and visual thinkers coming up with their ideas of a better tomorrow, writes Steve Mullins.

So, for its Show Us The Way film contest, the brand wants those kinda folk to submit their treatments for the opportunity to produce a five-minute short about ‘a tomorrow that is better than today’.

midem is calling for submissions to its Marketing Campaign Competition, an international contest rewarding the most innovative and creative use of music/artists in a marketing campaign. Each campaign will be judged on its force and creativity, the relevance of its concept, as well as its results compared to its objectives. Candidates are welcome to submit more than one project providing that each campaign ran in 2011 and includes a strong musical dimension.