Online travel company Priceline.com has chosen to “kill off” the popular Priceline Negotiator, a character played by William Shatner, in its new national TV campaign.

Priceline.com said it decided to kill off the character in order to focus consumers’ attention on its published-price hotel service, which is the fastest-growing segment of priceline.com’s hotel business.  Priceline.com said it will continue to offer its Name-Your-Own Price hotel service, which can save traveller up to 60 percent off published rates.

Shatner has been priceline.com’s celebrity spokesman for 14 years, and remains under contract to the company.  He first stepped into the role of The Negotiator in 2007.

The Priceline Negotiatorhas become very strongly associated with the priceline.com brand and the concept of negotiating to get a deal on a hotel room, said Brett Keller, priceline.com’s chief marketing officer. “However, priceline.com customers don’t have to negotiate themselves to get a deal,” said Keller. The company highlighted that without bidding, users can choose from over 200,000 quality hotels around the world.

“We felt it was necessary to go to extremes to grab the attention of every consumer in America and drive home the message that you don’t have to negotiate to save money on a hotel at priceline.com.  We know that The Negotiator has a lot of fans, and we hope that everyone understands this was something that just had to be done,” said Keller.

The new campaign opens with The Negotiator coming to the rescue of a family whose bus is teetering on a bridge.  Heroically, The Negotiator manages to get them safely off the bus - and find a hotel for the night.  But The Negotiator himself is unable to exit the bus before it plunges off the bridge.  Future spots in the campaign explore the aftermath of the crash, shared the company.