An adventure in marketing hunting apparel!
Hunters Element – brand marketing manager 2024 -2025.
Hunting is a much loved ‘national sport’ in Aotearoa and a great passion for many Kiwis. And Australia is not far behind. The very engaged community Hunters Element already had was a great starting point from which we could build next-level interactive marketing activity. My role was hands-on helping grow this renowned and epic Kiwi brand in a fast-paced apparel retail environment. With an established purpose of ‘unleashing boundless wild adventures’ it was a fun ride!
A particular highlight was developing storytelling to launch a new high quality and comprehensive rural range (5 years in the making). I led campaign planning and execution of this exciting sub-brand. Assets we created included a new high level Rural photo library, beautiful rich brand videos, campaign ads and a new custom designed website section.
New rural range website landing page
Beyond Rural, on the ‘Hunt’ side of the business, I looked after planning and led the team delivering a wide range of day-to-day comms. This included always on-brand and product advertising (at all levels of the funnel), email marketing, social media and ambassador comms. I led several new product and seasonal launches tied to key community events like the Roar and duck-shooting. Needless to say I now know a lot about hunting.
I managed ambitious marketing activations (including 3 collabs) at Fieldays in 2025. This activity was set in a big and bold temporary branded store and entertainment area in a huge 600m2 marquee. We created the ‘Hunter Games’, a series of fun activities to drive visitors in and build face-to-face customer engagement. A rare opportunity for a brand that doesn’t have any of its own physical stores. As well as hitting sales targets we had a 200% increase in email sign-ups on the previous year, massive engagement on social media and significant positive customer feedback.
Alongside the commercial marketing activity, Hunters Element has a fantastic commitment to supporting their wider community and natural environment with several People and Planet initiatives. Significantly for the brand story, all Hunters Element products are made sustainably using recycled plastic bottles. This matters to hunters who generally understand they won’t have anywhere to hunt if we don’t look after our beautiful wild spaces. Among various initiatives, I set up a collab with DOC to support their National Wild Goat Hunting Competition, a programme designed to stop goats destroying our native bush.
On the social good side we launched ‘Hunt it Forward’ for the Christmas holiday period. This feel-good comp celebrates all the ways generous hunters give back to their communities. Amazing stories flooded in from across Australia and Aotearoa and created a flow on of fabulous social content for months afterwards. I also worked on a popular collab with Movember and the Rock (radio) with a custom designed t-shirt which raises significant funds for mens health every year.
Hunters Element is an inspiring example of social and commercial marketing working in beautiful harmony.
‘Hunt it Forward’ website comp page
