Mars won £1 million of free advertising from Channel 4 for its Paralympics campaign

Mars Chocolate UK has secured £1 million ($1.3 million) of free advertising airtime from Channel 4 with a Maltesers campaign championing diversity and disability for the Paralympics.

Channel 4 selected Mars and creative agency AMV BBDO's campaign from 90 entries and their collection of three adverts will launch on 7 September, during the Paralympics opening ceremony.

Titled "Look on the Light Side," the adverts star four disabled actors celebrating universally awkward situations, such as embarrassing moments with new boyfriends and bad behaviour at weddings.

The 30-second scenes are all based on real-life stories from disabled people and each features the actors interacting with a packet of Maltesers.

Michele Oliver, vice president of marketing at Mars Chocolate UK, said: "As one of the UK's biggest advertisers, we have a responsibility and a role to play in reflecting diversity in everyday media. This is a first step for us."

Channel 4 sales director Jonathan Allan added: "The calibre of competition entries demonstrated that the UK ad industry can be world-leading in improving representation of disability in advertising."

Here are the three adverts in full: