Media Rights Capital has announced a partnership between priceline.com and Seth MacFarlane's web animation series Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy that will see William Shatner's Priceline Negotiator character turned into a cartoon in 4 introductory sequences that will air before Cavalcade shorts. Priceline will be sponsoring the Hulu Comedy channel for two weeks as well as the Cavalcade's Hulu and YouTube channels.
The full press release follows:
PRICELINE AND MEDIA RIGHTS CAPITAL ANNOUNCE SECOND ‘NEGOTIATION’ WITH SETH MACFARLANE’S
‘CAVALCADE OF CARTOON COMEDY’
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The Priceline Negotiator Gets Animated in New Web Shorts Launching on Exclusive ‘Cavalcade’ Hulu Channel, YouTube
New York, NY (March 9, 2010) − Media Rights Capital (MRC), the independent film, television and digital studio, today announced its second partnership with priceline.com and Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, a collection of shorts featuring animated characters created by Seth MacFarlane, exclusively for the Web. The famous “Priceline Negotiator” character will be featured in four new animated intros of the shorts, which will be available beginning March 9th on a new Cavalcade Hulu channel, on www.youtube.com/sethcomedy and www.priceline.com, as well as distributed through Tremor Media and Google’s content networks.
The launch marks Priceline and their agency-of-record, Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners’ second joint venture with MRC and MacFarlane, following their 2009 Cavalcade sponsorship. As part of the new integrated entertainment deal, Priceline will sponsor Hulu’s Comedy channel for two weeks, in addition to sponsoring the exclusive Cavalcade Hulu and YouTube channels, which will feature the four new “Negotiator” shorts and 18 shorts from the Cavalcade library. Since its inception, Cavalcade has generated more than 100 million online views.
“MRC has been thrilled with the success of Cavalcade. Our goal is to grow the audience and build on that success through our second partnership with Priceline,” said Modi Wiczyk, Co-CEO of Media Rights Capital. “Seth is one of America’s most brilliant creators and the Priceline Negotiator character has become synonymous with pop culture. Our integrated entertainment partnership allows us to deliver new content and allows Seth to do what he does best.”
“We’ve launched a unique digital program on Hulu and priceline.com by leveraging the strengths of the Priceline brand and the humor and cultural relevance of the Negotiator character,” stated Cort Cunningham, Priceline’s Director of Advertising & Branding. “Through our collaboration with BSSP, MRC and Seth MacFarlane, Priceline can connect with Seth’s audience on Hulu and extend this unique animated content into the social space.”
Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy is the first independent creative effort for Seth MacFarlane, the Emmy Award-winning creator of “Family Guy”, spin-off “The Cleveland Show” and “American Dad!” The Cavalcade shorts, each approximately one to two minutes in length, are composed of original characters, scripts, and content, and employ Seth’s signature hand drawn animation and a team of award-winning writers, actors, animators and producers.
About Media Rights Capital:
Media Rights Capital is a leading independent film, television and digital studio. The company specializes in the creation of premium content, custom building distribution for each of its projects and partnering directly with leading creative talent. Upcoming film projects include The Night Chronicles, a three film series with M. Night Shyamalan; The Adjustment Bureau, written and directed by George Nolfi and starring Matt Damon; District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s next project; and Taken director Pierre Morel’s next film. Television projects include “The Ricky Gervais Show” and a second season of “The Life and Times of Tim” for HBO, a second season of “Shaq Vs.” for ABC and David Fincher’s upcoming “House of Cards.” MRC’s digital projects include Seth MacFarlane’s “Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” which was also released on DVD and “Mommycast.”
About Priceline.com® Incorporated:
Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 32 languages in over 90 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Included in the priceline.com family of companies is Booking.com, a leading international online hotel reservation service, priceline.com, a leading U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers, and Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service. Priceline.com believes that Booking.com is Europe’s largest and fastest growing hotel reservation service, with a network of affiliated Web sites. Booking.com operates in 76 countries in 25 languages and offers its customers access to approximately 78,000 participating hotels worldwide.
In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises than any other Internet travel service. In addition to getting great published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using priceline.com’s TripFilter advanced search technology, customize their search activity through priceline.com’s Inside Track features, create packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com’s famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available. Priceline.com operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com also licenses its business model to independent licensees.
About Butler Shine Stern & Partners:
BSSP (www.bssp.com) is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Sausalito, CA. The agency provides services in advertising, online marketing and Web development, brand identity and design, and strategic brand consulting. One of the largest independent agencies on the West Coast, BSSP is recognized for its ability to provide highly creative, fully accountable marketing solutions to a broad array of marketers, including MINI Cooper, Priceline, RadioShack, Columbia Sportswear, Greyhound, Mountain Hardwear and Take Care Health Systems.
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