The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Creating and Sustainability Successful Growth)

by Clayton

Marriott Corporation has done the same thing by developing a brand architecture that is consistent with several different jobs its customers experience in life. This architecture has facilitated the creation of new disruptive businesses, while strengthening the Marriott brand at the same time. Under the endorsement of the Marriott brand, we have been taught to hire a Marriott Hotel when the job is to convene a major business meeting, and to choose a Courtyard by Marriott (“The hotel designed by business travelers for business travelers”) when the job is to get a clean, quiet place to work into the evening. We learned to hire Fairfield Inn by Marriott when the job is finding an inexpensive place to stay as a family, and Residence Inn by Marriott to find a home away from home. The Marriott brand remains unsullied by all of this, because the purpose brands make the job clear. In contrast, if Marriott marketers had positioned Courtyard hotels in a segment defined by a lower price point—a cheaper, lower-quality solution to the same job that the top-tier Marriott-brand hotels are hired to do—then the disruption could indeed have damaged the Marriott brand. But if a crisply defined purpose brand guides customers to hire the various hotels to do very different jobs, and if the hotel chains each are designed to do their respective jobs perfectly, then they all will be viewed as high-quality hotels, thereby strengthening the endorsing power of the Marriott brand.