Be taken aback by Albania’s cringeworthy new tourism campaign
In what ought to have been the latest episode of Funny or Die, the Albanian government has released one of the strangest tourism campaigns in recent memory: ‘Be Taken by Albania’.
In an act of desperation, or imaginative-madness, the European nation has seemingly used the cult-film Taken (2008) – a film about a former CIA agent’s search for his daughter after she is kidnapped by Albanian sex-traffickers – to promote Albania as a “beautiful and incredibly safe place to visit and live”.
There was no denying that the country directly referenced the film on purpose, after the campaign’s site approached Liam Neeson, the film’s lead, to visit the country:
“Hey Liam,” the main page of the #takenbyalbania official website reads.
“In popular culture, Albania has been coloured as a haven for thugs, criminals, and gangsters.
“While we understand that perception might make for good movies, like Taken (2008), it’s wholly untrue!”
Time will tell how long the campaign lasts, but if Travel Weekly’s reaction to it is anything to go by: this one will get taken to the cleaners. Or Liam Neeson’s legal team will find and kill it.
In a similar blunder, earlier this month Tourism Australia was forced to fix its latest advertisement for its UnDiscovered Australia campaign after a hilarious mistake in one of its first versions, set in Western Australia.
The original image shows a couple sitting on a hill in Kings Park, WA, while taking in the view of the Perth CBD at sunset. The caption reads: “Catch the sunset here”.
The problem, however, is that the sun in the image appeared to be setting in the east – not the west. The error has since been fixed.
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