The National Advertising Division (NAD) has determined that the popular “Priceline Negotiator” commercials featuring William Shatner claiming that Priceline.com offers “no booking fees” cannot be negated by a disclaimer stating that “no booking fees” applies to only a certain type of service offered by Priceline. The NAD recommended that the online travel booking service Priceline.com modify their television and website advertisements to make it easier for consumers to understand.
Priceline offers two distinctly different types of services on their travel booking site; a conventional retail model, and a Name Your Own Price system. In the Name Your Own Price system, customers bid on available travel inventory but do not know the precise flight information, including the name of the airline and flight time, until after the purchase is complete. The Name Your Own Price system allows customers to “negotiate” the price of a ticket or engage in a bidding process to find a lower price. This was the original Priceline model, and for several years the only type of service it offered. A few years ago, Priceline also began to offer a retail service allowing consumers to book a specific flight at a predisclosed price -- the traditional “take it or leave it” model under which the consumer does not negotiate. While this published price service is newer, it is significantly more popular than the negotiation model, and Priceline has advertised heavily to let travel customers know that it does include the customary $20-25 booking fees per ticket charged by many other retail travel services. The original “Priceline Negotiator” commercials stress the fact that there are “no booking fees,” but only specified in a tiny, three-second disclaimer appearing in small print at the bottom of the screen that the “no fee” offer only applies to the conventional retail reservations. The challenger, Expedia.com, argued that these two types of services are significantly different, and that the broad claim misleads consumers and cannot be narrowed by a disclaimer. Expedia.com further argued that because Shatner has been the spokesman for Priceline for so long and is inherently associated with their negotiation service, that this added to the consumer confusion. To support its position, Expedia.com submitted the results of a double blind consumer perception study, where several hundred consumers who had made an online flight and/or hotel purchase within the last two years were shown the challenged Priceline commercial and a control version of the commercial, which contained a bolder disclaimer regarding the booking fee. Over 60% of the survey respondents reported that the main message of the original commercial was “no booking fees” and did not note any difference between the traditional and the “Name Your Own Price” methods of booking. Although the NAD determined that the survey was somewhat flawed, they found that the message being conveyed by the original commercial was confusing to consumers.
Priceline.com responded by modifying their commercial and webpage during the course of the NAD review to make it more clear to consumers that the “no booking fee” offer applies only to its published price airfare reservation service. The NAD concluded that since Priceline offered two different services, if it was promoting a benefit for one service but not the other that this had to be clear. In this specific case, the NAD suggested that Priceline “set up” the ad to make clear the no fee promise does not apply to Name Your Own Price bookings. Marketers everywhere (and those who just cannot get enough Shatner) will rejoice that the NAD did not conclude an entirely different pitchman was necessary for the “no booking fee” promotions of the fixed fee service. Lessons learned are to carefully review your claims in context of your entire ad and make sure any disclaimers, if appropriate, are clear and prominent and likely to be understood by consumers.
