Priceline Negotiator: Not Dead
1 min read
A new Priceline ad reveals that the Priceline Negotiator is still sharing those Priceline deals.
Played by William Shatner, the last time viewers saw the Priceline Negotiator, he was in a bus that plunged off of a bridge and was destroyed in a fiery explosion. But as a new ad reveals, the Priceline Negotiator is alive and well and has found a new hobby.
The new thirty-second spot, due to air tomorrow, has hit YouTube already. “You’ve been busy for a dead man,” said a company man (Allan Louis). “After you jumped ship in Bangkok, I thought I’d lost you.”
“Surfing is my life now,” replied the Priceline Negotiator. Although dressed in a business suit, he has his pants legs rolled up and he is carrying a surfboard.
Before running into the ocean, the Priceline Negotiator can’t resist plugging Priceline one more time.
Shatner is pleased to return as the Priceline Negotiator. He felt that doing away with the character in the first place had been a bad decision. “I knew it was a mistake, absolutely,” he said.
“There’s a certain pride in making a character in advertising a popular character,” said Shatner “You could look at it as an achievement.”
About The Author
Great to see him brought back
The idiots in charge of Kirk’s death in Generations could take a lesson from this. It’s almost – gasp! – as if they are alluding to Kirk’s demise. You think? 😉
It was either a publicity stunt to kill him off in the first place, or Priceline wanted to cut their advertising budget and thus wanted rid of Shatner, only to find their commercials without him did much more poorly then anticipated and so reversed course. After all, in advertising, if something works to stick with it. Look at the Pillsbury Doughboy or the Trix Rabbit…
It was Shatner’s decision to kill the Negotiator off in a dramatic way. Priceline had changed their service model, rendering the character obsolete, well before the last batch of Negotiator commercials was produced. Priceline honored their contract, and asked Shatner how he would like to see the character go out. They intention was to retire the character permanently (a la Blade Runner), however the public response was so strong that they soon started looking into ways to bring him back.
“Sayonara, bra!” 😀