Maltesers and AMV BBDO launched 'Accountant, Powerpoint' in the United Kingdom in April 2018, using humour to challenge stereotypes and celebrate women's
How Maltesers and AMV BBDO Made Inclusion Funny in 2018
Maltesers launched 'Accountant, Powerpoint' in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2018 as part of the broader 'Celebrating Similarities' campaign, a two-film series created by AMV BBDO for Mars Wrigley Confectionery that used humour to challenge the misrepresentation of women across different ages and sexualities.
The campaign comprises two short film executions — 'Accountant' and 'Powerpoint' — distributed across television and digital channels in the UK. Each film draws on real-life stories told from the perspectives of women whose experiences, while specific, are designed to resonate with a wide audience through shared awkwardness, self-deprecation, and warmth. The comedic tone is unmistakably British: dry, observational, and lightly absurdist, with the kind of timing that makes a difficult subject feel approachable rather than preachy.
The campaign's central proposition is that similarity, not difference, is the more interesting and unifying truth about women's lives. By anchoring this idea in everyday professional and social situations — an accountant at work, a PowerPoint presentation gone sideways — AMV BBDO and Maltesers found a way to discuss representation and inclusion without leaning on the earnest, issue-first register that can alienate the very audiences it seeks to reach. As reported by The Drum, the campaign was described as 'refreshing and thought-provoking,' positioned explicitly to challenge stereotyping while retaining humorous tone. The two-film format allows each execution to carry its own comedic rhythm while reinforcing a single, coherent brand idea: that Maltesers belongs in the moments when life gets awkward and laughter is the only sensible response.
Maltesers built its 'Celebrating Similarities' strategy on a platform that AMV BBDO first established in the summer of 2015, with MediaCom handling media, according to Creative Salon and campaignlive.co.uk. That platform — 'Look on the light side' — deliberately moved the brand away from nostalgic female-friendship advertising toward something more socially alert, associating Maltesers with optimism, wit, and the ability to make awkward or difficult moments feel lighter rather than heavier. 'Accountant, Powerpoint' sits firmly within that lineage.
The strategic insight driving the 2018 work is deceptively simple: women are under-represented in advertising not merely in terms of numbers but in terms of authenticity. The campaign does not argue this point directly. Instead, it dramatises it by placing women of different ages and sexualities in situations that are recognisably, sometimes painfully, real — and then finding the laugh in them. This approach positions Maltesers in meaningful contrast to competitors such as Cadbury and Haribo, whose UK advertising in this period largely avoided identity-focused storytelling in favour of nostalgia or product-led humour.
The confectionery category in the United Kingdom is a mature, highly competitive market. The global chocolate confectionery market was estimated at US$122.18 billion in 2018, according to researchandmarkets.com, a figure that underlines the commercial stakes attached to brand differentiation. In a category where taste parity is assumed and price sensitivity is high, emotional resonance and cultural relevance become primary levers for preference. Maltesers' decision to pursue inclusion through comedy rather than sincerity was a calculated strategic bet that humour could carry serious intent without sacrificing reach or likability.
The two film executions share a visual and tonal grammar that is spare by design. Each piece is built around a single central performance, with the camera staying close enough to capture micro-expressions while leaving room for the comedic pause that British humour depends on. The production aesthetic is naturalistic — real-feeling locations, unremarkable in the best sense, chosen to make the situations feel lived-in rather than art-directed into implausibility.
Production credits for 'Accountant, Powerpoint' are not publicly documented in available sources, though the creative work was developed by AMV BBDO for Mars Wrigley Confectionery. The agency had, by this point, already demonstrated its capability with Maltesers' inclusion-oriented work: AMV BBDO won Channel 4's 'Superhumans Wanted' competition in 2016, earning one million pounds of free advertising for disability-focused Maltesers executions, as reported by creative.salon and campaignlive.co.uk. That earlier work established a creative precedent — that Maltesers could handle identity and difference with lightness and wit — and 'Accountant, Powerpoint' extends that precedent into a new social territory.
The writing is the executions' most visible craft element. The jokes are constructed with economy: each film builds toward a single payoff that reframes everything that preceded it. There is no voiceover moralising, no product-as-solution framing of the kind that saturates the snacks and confectionery category. The Maltesers brand is present as context rather than conclusion, which is precisely what allows the humour to land without feeling instrumentalised. In the United Kingdom, where audiences have a particularly well-developed resistance to advertising that tries too hard, this restraint is not merely a stylistic choice — it is a strategic necessity.
No independently verified performance data specific to the 'Accountant, Powerpoint' executions — such as view counts, brand-uplift scores, or sales effect — is publicly available at the campaign level. The Clapboard Score for this work is 60 out of 100, reflecting competent and purposeful execution within an established creative platform rather than a definitive step-change in the category.
What can be assessed structurally is significant. The campaign arrives at a moment when purpose-led advertising in the United Kingdom is under scrutiny for exactly the kind of earnestness that 'Accountant, Powerpoint' sidesteps. By using humour as the delivery mechanism for an inclusion message, Maltesers and AMV BBDO produced work that is structurally less vulnerable to the backlash that has followed more self-serious campaigns from brands in adjacent categories. The two-film format also creates compounding value: each execution reinforces the other, and the 'Celebrating Similarities' umbrella gives journalists, buyers, and platform algorithms a coherent hook for coverage and distribution.
The broader strategic track record of the Maltesers inclusion platform is notable. The disability-focused work that preceded this campaign — enabled by the one million pounds of free Channel 4 advertising won through the 'Superhumans Wanted' competition, as reported by creative.salon — generated substantial press coverage and contributed to Maltesers' reputation as a brand willing to take creative risks in the United Kingdom. 'Accountant, Powerpoint' builds on that equity without repeating it, which is itself a meaningful measure of strategic discipline.
'Accountant, Powerpoint' is a two-film campaign by AMV BBDO for Maltesers, launched in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2018. The films use dry British humour to tell real-life stories from women of different ages and sexualities, celebrating shared experiences and challenging misrepresentation within the confectionery category.
AMV BBDO created the campaign for Mars Wrigley Confectionery's Maltesers brand. The agency had worked with Maltesers since at least 2015, developing the 'Look on the light side' platform, and won Channel 4's 'Superhumans Wanted' competition in 2016, earning one million pounds of free advertising for earlier inclusion-focused work.
The campaign first broadcast in the United Kingdom on Monday, 23 April 2018. Distribution covered both television and digital channels, allowing the two film executions — 'Accountant' and 'Powerpoint' — to reach UK audiences across broadcast and online environments simultaneously.
The films extend AMV BBDO's 'Look on the light side' platform, established in 2015 with MediaCom handling media, according to creative.salon and campaignlive.co.uk. That platform repositioned Maltesers around optimism and wit. 'Celebrating Similarities' applies this tone to inclusion and representation, building on the brand's disability-focused advertising from 2016 and 2017.
Clapboard assigns 'Accountant, Powerpoint' a score of 60 out of 100. The rating reflects competent, purposeful execution within an established creative platform. The campaign demonstrates strategic consistency and tonal restraint but does not represent a category-redefining creative leap beyond the inclusion work Maltesers had already produced in the United Kingdom.
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