What Happened to the Trivago Guy?

23.04.2024 - 06:29 / skift.com / Dennis Schaal / Brand Marketing

Tim Williams, the Texas-born actor who played the Trivago Guy didn’t know he’d been replaced until he saw a new Trivago commercial last December.

There had been hints. Last year, Trivago had tried re-running old ads featuring Williams, and his agent said the results weren’t promising.

“At the moment they’ve got what they need,” Williams said his agent told him. “And they’ll look at the numbers and get back to us. And, so they never really got back.”

Trivago went in a different direction. Its TV commercials that began running last December feature a new actor and use AI so he can seem to speak in multiple languages for different markets.

Williams, now 57, is back in the U.S. after living in Germany for more than 20 years. Skift recently caught up with him in a video chat while he was at his mom’s condo in the Houston area.

What do you think of Trivago’s move to use AI TV commercials that eliminated the need to use multiple actors?

Tim Williams: “They’re saving money and I’ll tell you why. I’m union, I’m SAG (Screen Actors Guild).”

Williams said Trivago hadn’t realized he was a SAG member when the first TV commercial he did for them in 2013, “started airing and blew up.”

Williams said he made more than 60 TV commercials for Trivago, and more than 30 aired. They shot some in a green screen studio in Berlin, Germany, and others in Mexico. The last original commercial he made for Trivago was “probably in 2018.”

Did the Trivago commercials make you rich?

Tim Williams: “I had a million in my bank for about three days. In Germany, until the government takes half of it away. And I did a lot of traveling. But you know, I’ve got some stuff still left over of all that.”

Williams added that he had three contracts with Trivago over the years, but he didn’t get paid by the number of impressions.

Tim’s mom, Sharon Williams, walks into the condo and joins the interview.

What did y’all think of the fact that when the commercials ran, some women, totally loved them, and some women like thought they were gross?

Sharon Williams: “The thought it was gross but !”

Tim Williams: “I don’t know. There’s plenty of women who hate me out there.”

Sharon Williams: “What’s amazing is that Tim and the commercials were trendsetters. All of the sudden all of these other companies start going, ‘All you have to do is look on your phone etc.'”

You were famous for not wearing a belt? How did that happen?

Tim Williams: “They didn’t have much of a budget for that first commercial. They had belts there but it didn’t go through the belt loop for the pants they had chosen. The belt loops were too small and then the creative director, Jon Eichelberger, took his belt off and it didn’t work. And he said, ‘You know what, just go