Want people to buy your product? Hire Liam Neeson.

(Image credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Liam Neeson has a very particular set of skills — and no, this time we're not talking about his penchant for playing the toughest middle-aged man in the movie business.

A new survey from Nielsen, which studied the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements in commercials, found that when it comes to choosing a famous face to endorse a product, the Irishman was a solid bet:

[The survey] looked at celebrities who made commercials during the first three months of the year and ranked them with a calculation that takes into account likability, public awareness, influence and other factors. Its first "N-Scores" were released Tuesday. Neeson and Pierce Brosnan had identical scores of 94, although Neeson was judged to have a greater influence in getting products sold. [Associated Press]

It seems that older actors with cool-guy cachet did well across the board — Nielsen also noted that Jeff Bridges stood out for the amount of influence he had with fans — though recent ads featuring well-liked actresses like Natalie Portman, Sofia Vergara, and Jennifer Garner also scored well with consumers.

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.