Brad Pitt Alice Commercials
February 11, 2008 by Sherry
I hadn’t seen these until reader Lica emailed me to tell me about them. Brad Pitt is featured in a series of German ads for Alice, a telephone and DSL provider. So far two commercials are available with the third one still waiting to be shown (or possibly even filmed). The series shows Brad’s motorcycle breaking down and he has to pop into a random person’s house to use the phone to call a taxi. The wife and daughter are both really excited that he’s there and primp madly. I’m curious to see how it ends.
I don’t understand much German so I don’t really know what the family is saying but it works anyway because in the series Brad doesn’t understand them either and looks confused while speaking to them in English. I wonder what happens in the final slot - you can sign up to be notified when it’s ready.
To see the first two commercials, go to this site and scroll down to the bottom where it says “Ein Star für Alice” and you can watch them right there.
If anyone here is fluent in German, I’d love it if you could head into the comments and let us know the basic idea of what they’re saying to poor, stranded Brad Pitt!
Technorati Tags: brad pitt, brad pitt alice, brad pitt commercials, brad pitt german
Hi, I speak some Deutsch. I only watched the ads through once, but basically, in the first one - when Brad is standing at the door - the lady at first thinks he’s pointing to the Alice ad on the bus stop shelter, then understands he means his bike. She says, “You need a phone? Come in.” And something about his tank being empty. She tells him he can stay on the phone as long as he likes because they have a flatrate for their landline, as well as for their DSL (when she offers him e-mail access.) In the second ad, she again mostly talks about the great deal they’re getting with Alice (I lived in Berlin for 4 years, and Alice isn’t actually that great a deal…) She mentions that her daughter loves talking on the phone, but that’s okay because they get a good rate (including calls from a landline to a ‘handy’, which is a cellphone.) Then she’s all happy that she’s talking to him, and that’s when he asks her to call a taxi. “Ein Taxi? Klar.” A taxi? Sure… In other words, she’s mostly talking about her phone plan, which is probably what any of us would talk about if Brad Pitt showed up at our door. Hope that was helpful!
LoL the ads are pretty funny even though I dont understand it.
Lol thats probably why I think its funny cause i dont understand it. 8]
lol!! yeah if i ever see brad i’ll try to mention my phone plan.
thanks danielle for the interpretation. I appreciate it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8piAP4rhXhg
an old commercial but Brad is like whatever to his driver or who ever he is.
Danielle - Thanks for the translation!
Leat - No kidding, right? OMG it’s Brad, I’m nervous… let me tell him how many hours my plan covers!
danielle, thanks for letting us know what was going on in that commercial. understandably, i’d probably be talking nonsense if brad pitt was ever in my house.
Oh and thanks Sherry and Lica for leading us to the commercials.
That was funny and it looks very recent since Brad has his beard. Do you remember the Canadian lady’s story when Brad all of a sudden knocked at her door and introduced himself when he was looking for a rental for him and his family during the filming of Jesse James? It reminded me of this commercial. From what I remembered, Brad said to the lady, “I’m Brad, ” then the lady said, “I know.” He was also alone on his bike like this commercial. Anyway, thanks Sherry and to Danielle for the translation.
I live in Austria and we also speek German here.
I think this commercial is not very successful.
The topic should be funny but it’s not… it’s rather standard. The actress was quite bad and I think Brad was bored when he acted in this clip.
If I had to pay him thousands of dollars for acting in my commercial I would make the best out of it.
Thanks for the translation Danielle, and Sherry for the videos.
It is one of the worst phone rate commercials I’ve seen in a long time.
Now this commercial is soo German.
The woman is the typical German woman.
Blonde, tall, no wit, no fun, no charm. She is just rattling on about phone rates.
How cheap, how practical and so on.
There is just esprit in this commercial. Brad does not get the chance to ad charisma to this either because the script is just boring.
What a pity!
The basic idea of him coming by with the bike and not speaking German is not bad at all. It’s just that there is no smart story behind.
Compared to the Clooney ad “nespresso what else?” this one is just plain boring.
Sorry, I meant no esprit of course!
Ha, ha…I live in Munich, Germany and Alice is my provider. It’s a funny add, the translation above is correct, the lady tries to keep Brad longer “Oh, you could have been on the phone longer (we have a flat rate), you probably need to check you e-mails, stay, stay”. :)))
Alice is my provider too, i live in Hamburg. it´s a really cute commercial. i have the feeling Brad is exactly like this in real life, nice and polite.
I don’t understand German but keep on looking at Brad’s face all the time. LOL. It must be recent commercial, his hair, the scruffy look & that scarf was that the scarf he wore on one occasion? Alice should have included Ange too, riding the bike with Brad. Got to go to work, see you all later. God bless the Jolie-Pitt’s.
Hi, I am from Austria too, and I think the commericial is really really bad. Sorry.
Of course this man looks great, but thats it. No fun, no haha, and this horrible lady in the end waving around with her mobile, i am sorry, it look cheap.
When he asks, “Could you call a taxi?” his voice sounds just like joe black - from another world entirely….
I’d be dumbfounded for a few seconds (hopefully not minutes, LOL) if Brad was ever at my house. LOL
I’ll give him my mobile, the landline, the fax machine, desktop, laptop, anything and everything he needs to communicate with… Make sure he’s comfy so he could stay longer. LOL
Aw, gawd. Wishful thinking. Sorry
Sherry, you must be very proud to have so many people from so many different countries come to your web site. As we all know, it is a great website. You make it so interesting and so much fun, and we all have so many different thoughts and idea’s.
Well, it’s a great site for someone like me, a big time Angelina fan. And, I am not German, just have been living here for a while. Best to all Jolie-Pitt fans from all over the world!
PS. I know that AOL bought Alice, so that might be the reason for Brad doing the commercial.
hahahahahaha…Brad is sooooo adorable…and almost all the BAMPZS fans’s comments are hilarious about what to do if that commercial were to happen to them LOL Let’s all keep believing it can happen to us too
Irma great suggestion re: including Angie - my mind went to her standing next to the bike with BP at the door, and her siloette standing at the curb - quick shot - but undoubtedly her…..
The one with Angie could be the sequel, and she’d have her own bike, separate from Brad’s. It’d be interesting to see the whole family, or maybe a house full of frat boys (does Germany have frat boys) react to Angie’s sexy, playful, adventurous biker girl persona.
Thanks for all the links and translation. I thought the ads were funny, but maybe something got lost in the translation.
This commercial entertains us with the “gee wizz, what if” factor while all along we are informed what a good deal Alice would be to have in our homes. I am Alice’s real life dad in Rome, by the way.
I live in the Netherlands and we have the commercial here too. Brad’s charming, but since the commercial is “dubbed”(that’s the right english word?) to Dutch, it’s even worse….. oh well, he does his part well.
Hi everybody,
I completely agree with Ana from Austria (I’m German, living in the U.S. now)… the commercial is quite phony, not really funny, and Brad seems bored. Not a nice commercial to look at. Unfortunately. And I also agree with Danielle who lived in Berlin - Alice never seemed to be a serious player in the telephone market. And I don’t think they’ll do any better airing *these* commercials… I guess Brad is quite popular in Germany, but at this commercial… I rolled my eyes and sighed when I saw it.
P.S.: I’m actually thinking that the ad hasn’t even been shot in a German house - the architecture/interior doesn’t look like that - rather American instead. Also, her voice sounds so… artifical, that I’m thinking she’s an American actress dubbed with a German voice. What do others think? I felt the same as Marie: looks cheap this commercial. Sorry to say that, but that’s what I felt.
Yeah, I live in the Netherlands too, and the commercial looks pretty… cheap and very ‘Germanish’, no offense! But German commercials are often very different from Dutch ones.
This is the Dutch one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InfiM3huCL4
Here’s a translation from the Dutch commercial:
BP: “Hi… I’m sorry [...]”
Background: “Imagine, one night when some man rings the doorbell and asks if he can use your phone, ’cause his motorcycle is empty.”
BP: “Hi”
Background: “Then you’re happy that you’ve got Alice at home.”
Woman: “You won’t believe this!”
Background: “He can use your phone as long as he wishes, ’cause you can call unlimited to every [homephones/not cellphones?]”
Woman: “But you are completely free to call longer!”
Background: “And if he’s at your house anyway, you may want to have him using your super fast internet.”
Woman: “I’m sure you have to check your email as well, don’t ya?”
BP: “Email?”
Woman: “Yes. Yes, you should push that button”
Background: “Everyone wants the [clearness] of Alice. Look for the conditions on alice dot N L”
Bad translation. I’m sorry, just not in the mood.
I hate to break it to you guys, but the commericial is actually dutch. Nothing German about the house, neither american =P.. The actrice in the German ad sounds indeed artificial, because she’s actually speaking dutch. I know this because I’m from holland, and my internetprovider is, yes, Alice. Works great by the way!
As a german Alice subscriber, I must say that these spots are an incredible waste of money and Brad Pitt…
From an advertiser’s point of view, they are really unmeaningly, don’t transport any clear message and they target the wrong group - decisions about the ISP are still a predominant male domain here.
From a customer’s p.o.v., they are making me upset because Alice’s service has been put below all standards prior to this campaign.
From a citizen’s p.o.v., they really piss me off because Alice/Telecom Italia (the Alice owner) literally blackmails service employees in the poor east of Germany to accept unspeakingly bad labor conditions (almost on a “China” level) for an absolutely ridiculous salary that can only be called “slavery”. They threaten these employees with the usual “accept it or we outsource your job to Romania”. That’s all while they burn millions for these ridiculous commercials
So Mr. Pitt accepted a deal with the crappiest and most unsocial ISP in Germany and the apparently crack-addicted creators of the campaign made him look like a moron. The customer’s judgement for the spots on the Alice homepage is accordingly - devastating.
Hi, just a few further details from the German ad No. 2. I’m German, so my translation will not be too good…
Actually mother and daughter are thinking about how to keep him in their house a bit longer, as he wants to go. So the daughter suggests to tell him there is a taxi strike, it’s just a trick. The father suggests to drive him by car, but the mother quickly says: “But your car is broken!”, also a trick. Finally she ads something like “Oh, how sweet you are”!