Gone. Outdoor

Gone. is the exclusive distributor for Patagonia in South Africa with stores in Cape Town and Johannesburg and an online store. Having known of Patagonia for many years, I met Grant Cleghorn (the owner) shortly after Gone opened their doors. Fast forward a few months, and I started working with Gone and I worked with Grant and the team for nearly 3 years.

Responsibilities:
I was responsible for the brand strategy and the marketing plan - as well as ensuring that everything is executed. My work involved managing the social media, email marketing, graphic design, website maintenance and e-commerce optimisation for the online store on Shopify as well as environmental and go-to-market campaign design and event management.

Gone. also required a significant amount of community engagement due to the number events we hosted during the year, including film screenings, talks, trail races, monthly repair events, weekly group runs etc.

I’m extremely proud of the work and the depth of the community that I built for Gone.

Examples of some of the work I did:

I have developed a Newsletter strategy for Gone. Some examples can be seen via the hyperlinks: Newsletter Example 1, Newsletter Example 2 & Newsletter Example 3

Featured

#Gone2Gone

A ‘semi-virtual’ trail run where participants had a month to run a set 21km trail from the Cape Town to the High Constantia Gone store. More than 2,800 people registered to run, but my estimation is that well over 3,500 people participated. Check out the posts and Story Highlights on Instagram.

#Gone2Gone Race Number

Every participant who signed up for #Gone2Gone received a personalised Race Number that I auto-generated.

Store Openings

During my time at Gone, we opened 3 new stores. See Instagram Posts and Highlights of the High Constantia store opening.

Duct Tape & Beer Events

Hosted monthly repair events in the JNB and CPT stores; where we’d repair any outdoor gear free of charge.

The #GoneSearch

Based on Geocaching - we hid something on Table Mountain which people had to find and take a photo with. By posting their photo on Instagram, they were entered into the lucky draw. The competition ran over Easter Weekend and was a massive success.

#GoneIndoor

#GoneIndoor was a Lockdown competition to encourage 'getting out' while being in at home. See Instagram Post & Highlights.

Micro Adventure Blog

In order to create and share more relevant (and local) content, started a micro adventure blog where anyone could submit their weekend missions. Once published, they received a voucher. To date, this remains to be the some of the most engaging content on the feed. See the blog and one of the posts.

Oceans Alive Event

Our sold-out 2019 event at Wavescape which I organised in the Two Oceans Aquarium.

Brand Colabs

I organised various brand colabs and competitions to strengthen our ties with brands, the community and build a wider audience. This particular image was a colab between Gone. Sealand Gear, and Jack Black Beer.

Print & Graphic Design

I handled all the graphic design at Gone for online, print and in-store collateral. This example is from a print ad I did for Trail Mag.

Blog Posts & Writing

I wrote various blogposts for Gone. Here’s an example.

Weekly Store Runs

Every Wednesday, come rain or shine, we did a group run from the store in Cape Town, and later High Constantia.

Talks & Presentations

I organised various talks about environmental issues, adventures, sport or activism. At this particular talk, Damien Schumann shared his story of running across the Cape Fold mountains.

Duct Tape & Beer

Example of some of the repairs we did. Read my post about it here.

Event Sponsorship & Coverage

Gone supported the Three Peaks Challenge and I handled the event coverage and buildup.

Links to the profiles:
My work can be seen from February 2017 till September 2020.

ClientsHeleen MillsJuly 1, 2021Social Media, Design, Events, Email Marketing, Ecommerce