While the holidays may conjure up images of Liam Neeson as the mild-mannered yet befuddled Daniel who is mourning the loss of his wife and struggling to bring up his stepson in Love Actually, Neeson is typically associated with an entirely different sort of persona.
If you’ve seen him in Darkman, Batman Begins, Clash of the Titans, The Grey or any of the Taken movies, then you know that Liam Neeson can be pretty badass. That badassness has been put to good use in a promotional partnership between LinkedIn and 20th Century Fox, which is promoting Neeson’s third outing as Bryan Mills in Taken 3.
In a YouTube video, created by entertainment marketing agency Trailer Park, referencing the famous “I will find you and I will kill you” speech from Taken, Neeson introduces himself as Bryan Mills and notes that he and his colleagues have acquired a “particular set of skills from decades of hands-on experience.”
After regaling viewers with a summary of his own skills — such as contract negotiation, international relations, transportation logistics, multi-party conflict resolution and the recovery of valuable assets — Neeson notes that he “can always use another professional.”
He then urges viewers (112,900 to date) to go a special Taken 3 LinkedIn page and “follow the instructions exactly.”
Basically, all you have to do is follow the movie’s LinkedIn page, which enters you into a contest. For the contest winner, Neeson promises to “find your LinkedIn profile, review it and record a video of myself endorsing your particular set of skills.”
Really, who wouldn’t want an endorsement from Liam Neeson on LinkedIn?
20th Century Fox is promoting movie in creative ways on other social media channel as well. Take this example from Facebook:
This part of the promotion includes a page on which you can “mess with Bryan Mills” and he will kick your butt, giving you a new, “messed up” profile picture.
And in addition to the LinkedIn tie-in, a partnership with keyboard app Riffsy allows users to download Taken 3 animated gifs via the keyboard install.
Consider your keyboard Taken. Download @Riffsyapp GIF Keyboard for iOS with #Taken3 gifs. http://t.co/ZTQCSpi6fg pic.twitter.com/VzSwH0Ea2B — Taken 3 (@TakenMovies) December 11, 2014
There’s even a hilarious take on the 12 Days of Christmas:
Count down to Christmas with a new take on a classic song, the 12 Skills of Christmas. #Taken3https://t.co/2FAaDb2mnI — Taken 3 (@TakenMovies) December 13, 2014
And there’s the Taken Ultimate Quiz which queries you on, again, a particular set of skills (actually Taken movie facts), with a quiz in which you have to answer three questions in the time allotted to move onto the next level.
These social promotions make great use of Neeson’s iconic character as well as the unique functionalities of each social channel. Not only are they clever, interactive and fun, they’re doing a great job raising awareness for the film!
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