The Marriott-Starwood Merger: Navigating Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture

Jill  Avery; Chekitan S.  Dev

Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | May 2020

The Marriott-Starwood Merger: Navigating Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture

by Jill Avery and Chekitan S. Dev

Abstract

In September 2016, Marriott completed its $13.3 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which added 11 brands to its already robust 19 hotel brand portfolio. Tina Edmundson, Marriott’s global brand officer, was charged with making sense of the brand portfolio and designing a strategy that would clearly differentiate each brand from the others, and a brand architecture system to communicate to consumers how to navigate among them. She would need to decide whether and how to prune brands from the portfolio, whether and how to combine brands through dual-branding and or sub-branding strategies, and whether, where, and how to use the Marriott parent brand to endorse the remaining brands.

Keywords: branding; brand portfolio strategy; brand architecture; Hospitality Industry; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Travel Industry; Accommodations Industry; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

22 pages

Citation:

Avery, Jill, and Chekitan S. Dev. "The Marriott-Starwood Merger: Navigating Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 520-112, May 2020.

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018 (Revised July 2020)

Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

Jill Avery and Ayelet Israeli

As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a valuation of $200 million and debating changes to them that will allow them to grow their business. Ensuring that their marketing dollars were being spent efficiently was critical to the data-driven management team and proving to be complicated as the company moved spending from digital marketing to offline media, which made attribution modeling more difficult. Decisions pertaining to product extensions, channel expansion beyond DTC e-commerce, and geographic expansion were also on the table to prove that Hubble's customer value proposition and operations could profitably scale.

Keywords: DTC; direct to consumer marketing; health care; e-commerce; mobile; digital marketing; attribution; experimentation; experiments; churn/retention; customer lifetime value; internet marketing; big data; analytics; social media; A/B Testing; CRM; Advertising; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Media; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Online Advertising; Consumer Behavior; Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; North America; Europe;

Citation:

Avery, Jill, and Ayelet Israeli. "Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing." Harvard Business School Case 519-011, August 2018. (Revised July 2020.) View Details

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The Marriott-Starwood Merger: Navigating Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture

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