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Ben Sturner
President, Leverage Agency, LLC
Ben Sturner is President and co-founder of Leverage
Agency, LLC. He has vast experience in the areas of global
sports and event marketing, creative sponsorship activation
and media relations through his work with the Olympics and numerous
sporting events around the world.
Before co-founding Leverage Agency, Ben was the Director of
Marketing for Bennett Global Marketing Group, where he worked
on sponsorships and event marketing for clients including Dunkin'
Donuts, Reebok, Manchester United and Level Vodka. Unimpressed
by the results of standard marketing practices, he pushed the
boundaries with untraditional tactics, such as head tattoo advertising.
The campaign he managed for Reebok at the Boston Marathon was
selected as a finalist for the National ADchievement Award in
the category of Alternative Media.
Prior to Bennett Global, Ben initiated and managed Lycos' marketing
endorsement with Anna Kournikova, and worked to develop and
implement the multi-platform advertising and promotional campaign
"Win Anna's Stuff." The Kournikova/Lycos campaign
was recognized as one of the top consumer launches of the year
in 2000 by PR Week magazine. Ben also conceived the "Watch
a Championship With a Champion" sweepstakes featuring Mark
McGwire and John Elway. This program returned over 500% ROI
(media value versus expense) for both sponsors, Taco Bell and
Verizon. During the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he managed
Lycos' global sponsorship. Ben represented Lycos in the athlete
village booking and producing more than 20 live online chat
events with gold medal Olympic athletes.
Ben has worked with major television networks, including NBC
and ESPN at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, The X Games and the Australian
Open. He spent a year in Australia working for the Sydney Olympic
Committee's media and marketing group. Additionally, Ben has
worked for the USTA media department for the Davis Cup and U.S.
Open tennis tournaments.
At Leverage Agency, Ben has secured sports sponsorships with
companies such as GM Hummer, Edge Shaving Gel, Subway, Progressive
Insurance, Dodge, Gillette and Nissan among others.
Ben has been quoted in several national media publications on
sports marketing, including a case study in a book entitled
"Passion Branding." He was interviewed and featured
on ESPN's Anna Kournikova Sports Century documentary and on
ESPN's Outside The Lines program on the marketing of the UFC.
Ben also enjoys teaching and mentoring students and giving back
to the community. He is a frequent guest speaker at Fordham
Business School and New York University and will be teaching
Sports Business as a part time faculty member at New York University
beginning in September 2006. He also serves on the advisory
board of The Partnership of the College Application Processing
Service and volunteers with The Manhattan Jewish Experience
(MJE) Foundation and the William J. Clinton Foundation. He earned
his bachelor's degree with Cum Laude honors from Boston University's
College of Communication and played on BU's division one tennis
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