PR bait&switch - Maria Sharapova's namechange to "Sugarpova" a cheap ploy

Maria Sugarpova.. er, sorry Sharapova announced that she was going to change her name during the US Open to "Sugarpova". What a great idea. Every time she was mentioned in the open, the brand "Sugarpova" would be mentioned too. This is thinking like an SEO master.

But wait, these days twitter is involved, and news has a short shelf-life. The announcement was designed to draw attention to her candy business. Yeah, that one that you had never heard of until now. Everyone on twitter weighed in, and then some, as the oldest stunt in the book grabbed easily retweetable headlines. It's never going to happen, the name change, the whole idea was for you to retweet it. You were clickbaited.

The question is What did her brand partners think of the stunt? Classy named like Tag Heuer, Porsche and Evian pay quite a bit to be associated with the high-end sport that tennis is, and Maria Sharapova as the star in it. Now what? A cheap candy brand name mentioned in the same breath as Tag Hauer? "Maria Sugarpova wears exclusive watch, only $1799.00". Nope. That won't do. She wasn't going to do it anyway, but your brand is now associated with it.

Drop her. Drop her fast.

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