1. MARIA SHARAPOVA
MARKETING THE
PROMISE OF SUCCESS

2. PREPARING FOR GREATNESS

Maria Sharapova –young attractive player , fighter, competing hard for every point

For marketing it was important to capture these characteristics of her personality

She was known as a “WINNER”


At the age of 13; interviewed for the story of HBO Real sports
They asked Maria, “If you had a choice between winning Wimbledon or making $20 million
in endorsement, what would you choose?”

Later that year, she won the Australian Open Juniors Tournament- her first professional win.

After that Eisenbud , confident of her potential, began to sell her winnings

3. SHARAPOVA V/S KOURNIKOVA

Max Eisenbud focused on differentiating Sharapova from Anna Kournikova

Anna Kournikova, despite her performance on court she was more renowned for her beauty
and tabloid appearances

Anna Kournikova started doing ads, that was quite different from her sports image

She did ads for FHM, Maxim and her photographs of scantily clad body appeared in various
men’s magzine

ESPN ranked Anna in 25 biggest sports flop of the past 25 years

4. EARLY DEALS OF SHARAPOVA

Sharapova always thought that if she were involved in all the little decisions, then
she will never have the time to play

As of 2004, Sharapova’s endorsement were limited to deals with NIKE and Prince
rackets

Eisenbud and Gavin Forbes , deliberately secured her clothing and equipment deals
that involves well known elite brands

5. MARKETING A WIMBLEDON
CHAMPION

In 2004, a 17- year old beautiful girl Maria Sharapova became the third youngest
and first Russian woman to win Wimbledon

For marketing, it was the perfect storm, she was young, brand new, she just upset
the number 1 player at Wimbledon in front of worldwide television audience

Within six hours of her victory, Eisenbud had received nearly 700 e-mails

6. MOTOROLA – LUCRATIVE
ENDORSEMENT

Sharapova got the Motorola
endorsement
by
the
Alan
Zucker’s effort on “value the
opportunity and how best to
approach the meeting”

7. OTHER OPPORTUNIES

After winning Wimbledon flood of opportunities were there in front of Maria
Sharapova’s agent

To handle all these opportunities he found out lots of questions,

What was the preferred overall marketing strategy?

How could he best leverage the resources available to him at IMG?