Coffee hunk wars: Pitt takes on Clooney with role in De'Longhi campaign

Coffee machine brand De’Longhi has signed up Brad Pitt as its global brand ambassador on a two-year contract.

Pitt stars in an initial campaign, "The Perfetto", created by M&C Saatchi Milan, which will air in the UK this evening during the England versus Hungary World Cup qualifier on ITV, and will continue to run until December, with a £4m UK budget behind it.

Filmed in Los Angeles in March, the ad shows the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood star taking the scenic route around the City of Angels before picking up his coffee beans and brewing a cappuccino at home with the De’Longhi coffee machine Dinamica Plus.

The partnership sees Pitt take on fellow Hollywood star George Clooney, who has fronted ads for Nestlé's coffee machine brand Nespresso since 2006. Clooney most recently appeared in the campaign "Made with care" this May, alongside a series of other public figures.

Speaking to Campaign at a launch event, De’Longhi managing director Lee Bonniface said: “Choosing an ambassador is a really difficult thing to do. A global ambassador has to transcend generations, cultures, and countries. We felt having an iconic, stylish ambassador would really reflect the way the brand is going and the opportunities we have.”

Pitt isn’t the only Academy Award-winning figure to have worked on the campaign: it was directed by Damien Chazelle, who won the Oscar for best director for La La Land, with cinematography by Linus Sandgren and the score composed by Justin Hurwitz. Sandgren and Hurwitz also won Oscars for the 2016 musical.

The campaign was created by Angelo Ratti and Cristina Marra at M&C Saatchi and produced by Superprime.

This is the first co-ordinated global campaign for the brand and the ad will be running in more than 25 markets across the world, including the UK, Australia, China, and the US. Mediaplus, Wavemaker and Fusion 5 are the media agencies working on the campaign.

Bonniface said the aim of the campaign in UK was introducing and educating customers on coffee. 18% of households currently own a "bean-to-cup" or capsule coffee machine, but Boniface believes the UK market can match France within the next two to three years; France has 37% household penetration.

He said: “The market in the UK has a lot of opportunity for market growth. People really don’t understand what these coffee machines do, so we needed to create more awareness in the upper funnel. The whole point of this ad is to bring together beans and machines in that journey.”

The TV ad will be supported by out-of-home and digital advertising. This includes billboards up and down the UK and advertising in Oxford Circus Underground Station, as well as an influencer campaign on Instagram.