Marriott Movie Is a Big Hit

With 3.6 million views and counting, Marriott's movie short, "Two Bellman Two," is a testament to engaging audiences with innovative content. According to Skift, this second Marriott movie tops the first, which was shot within one LA property. This one targets the luxury traveler and sells the destination: 

"In Dubai, Marriott is now emphasizing the destination to sell the hotel by highlighting the wide panoramic vistas across the desert and sea, along with scenes of various tourist activities ranging from sand dune surfing to water jetpacking."

According to Skift, "All in all, Marriott has developed something with this movie franchise that transcends all of that. They have created two winning brand identities that establish JW Marriott in an entirely different consumer market landscape."

The movie site is about about the movies; we see no promotional information or links to Marriott properties at all. 

Marriott Content Studio is behind the innovative films. A look inside the company shows a central control center, M Live, with "nine screens, showing everything from the social media campaigns of Marriott's 19 brands to real-time booking information to Marriott's editorial calendar." Swivel seats are for different departments within the company. According to David Beebe, Marriott's Emmy-winning vice president of global creative, 

"This is a tool for everybody to use in the building. It's customer-first thinking. That's why a lot of brands can't achieve what we're doing. They think, ‘I can't do that because someone over there is not going to like it.' It gets very internal-political."

Discussion Starters: 

• What are the potential downsides of a company venturing into this type of creative marketing? 
• Read more about the Content Studio and the analytics: how is the company measuring success?