Priceline.com has something else unique – the ubiquitous William Shatner, who has been the company’s celebrity spokesperson for over a decade. It’s a well-known story that Shatner signed on with Priceline for stock instead of cash and has since made out quite well, thank you very much.

WEBSITE
His longevity as “the Negotiator” – the guy who supposedly gets travelers the “Best Price Guaranteed” – is legendary in the fickle ad business. Shatner prominently appears not once, but twice, on the Priceline.com home page.

Priceline's pitch has remained essentially the same since its website went live in April 1998, when it reportedly garnered 600,000 hits on its first day. The excitement then, and now, relates to Priceline’s breakthrough concept of “Name Your Own Price.” A traveler bids on an airline flight, for example, without being told the name of the airline until the proposed price is accepted. In order to get the best deal, the traveler has to agree to fly at any time on the desired travel date and to purchase without cancellation if the bid goes through.

The brand's website still features the ability to “name your own price” in order to get “deeper discounts,” but the company has broadened its approach to appeal to travelers who don’t want to engage in bidding. Now Priceline.com is positioned as a discount travel site for airfare, hotels, rental cars, vacations, and cruises. This puts the discounter in direct competition with such online services as Expedia.com, Hotels.com. Hotwire.com, and Travelocity.com.

Priceline.com’s functionality is similar to other travel sites, but its focus is undeniable: discounts, discounts, and more discounts. Other sites, in fact, seem to be promoting deals more regularly, probably as a defensive reaction to Priceline.

To increase the site’s ancillary value, Priceline.com provides “travel guides” for major cities in association with Zagat Survey. While the guides include such sections as “About” and “Attractions,” they are light on detail, except when it comes to hotels. In effect, the travel guides appear to be just another avenue to siphon site visitors into the purchase loop for hotel rooms.

One helpful new feature of Priceline.com is "Hotel Price Maps." The visitor can choose a listed city and see hotel prices overlaid onto a geographic map of the area, zooming in on specific hotels as desired. The tool allows a visitor to pick a hotel based on three different criteria, using a dynamic sliding scale: price range, star rating, and guest rating. These “filters” help personalize the manner in which a hotel is chosen so, in this case, the focus isn’t entirely on a discounted price.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Shatner’s Priceline Negotiator persona is naturally being promoted on Facebook with branded page and on Twitter. But perhaps even more interesting is what Priceline is doing in the mobile space, where it offers an iPhone app in addition to its older mobile site.

Priceline’s iPhone Negotiator app lets users “pick the exact neighborhood and star level you want, and save up to half-off when you bid for a hotel on your iPhone/iPod. With recent winning bids to help you get started and blazing fast, 100%-native checkout to seal the deal, you’ll save big on the fly.”

Position Priceline as the Internet’s leading travel discounter is working. The company reported that revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009 increased 33.4 percent over a year ago. For the full year, Priceline.com saw a revenue increase of more than 24 percent versus the prior year. No doubt that makes “the Negotiator” William Shatner a very happy man, especially when it comes time to don his Contract Re-negotiator guise.