The latest Shatner Priceline commercial features a new sidekick for the former Captain Kirk.<\/p>\n
Priceline unveiled its 2010 marketing campaign and returning for his twelfth year as the celebrity spokesman is William Shatner<\/strong>. This year, he will be joined by a new sidekick, named “Big Deal”.<\/p>\n “Following the success of an earlier character, ‘No Fee’, who helped ‘The Priceline Negotiator’ [Shatner] highlight priceline.com’s elimination of airline ticket booking fees in 2007, we have created ‘Big Deal’, a new Negotiator sidekick,’ said priceline.com’s Chief Marketing Officer Brett Keller<\/strong>. “In an amusing and entertaining way, ‘Big Deal’ helps ‘The Negotiator’ demonstrate just how big the hotel deals are at priceline.com, how easy it is to get them and, most importantly, that priceline.com is the home of the ‘Big Deal’.”<\/p>\n Shatner’s Priceline ads have been spoofed by Jay Leno<\/strong>, parodied on Saturday Night Live<\/em>, lampooned in Mad Magazine<\/em> and featured as a question on both Jeopardy<\/em> and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire<\/em>.<\/p>\n “We are very pleased with how ‘The Negotiator’ has become his own social phenomenon, much like William Shatner did in the earliest priceline.com commercials,” said Mike Shine<\/strong>, BSSP’s co-Creative Director. “When you look on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, you’ll see people re-creating that karate kick, singing the Negotiator ‘sting’ or just talking about how ‘The Negotiator’ found them a sweet Priceline deal. When a concept has ‘legs’ like that, the brand recognition for an advertiser just multiplies.”<\/p>\n