Packing Pink

The Challenge

While the aim of Packing Pink is to help women overcome fears and create new skills for fun and protection, Packing Pink is about more than just shooting. We were challenged to create a statement, a slogan, which illustrated the entire mission. Once created, we needed to successfully communicate the Packing Pink message to the correct audience. Packing Pink also wanted help expanding its brand beyond the pistol introduction class originally offered.

How We Helped

The statement we came up with to illustrate the complete goal of Packing Pink was “Hold Your Own.” To show women that they can gain the knowledge and skills to be comfortable with firearms in any and all situations. Forum helped expand offerings to pistol classes for beginner, intermediate and advanced training levels, as well as classes that engage women in the outdoors, from shooting sporting clays to hunting, as well as cooking classes aimed at preparing their hunting harvest. We created pull-up banners for special events and fundraisers, as well as posters and brochures to create awareness and buzz for Packing Pink’s varied offerings. We also obtained earned media in local publications including a Q&A with Anna in HOME, a magazine about living in Northeast Georgia. Anna also has become a brand ambassador for Bass Pro Shops and Ducks Unlimited, and both organizations are promoting her on their own. Packing Pink is truly realizing its mission of empowering women to be comfortable in their own skin, around guns and to get involved outdoors.

“What Forum has done for me is a million times better than what I expected! I absolutely love working with Forum. I would never have been able to reach my full potential without your team. I can hardly sleep thinking about what’s next!”

Anna Van Nostrand

– Founder of Packing Pink

All in the Details

As time went by, Anna realized that her love of the outdoors paralleled her love of teaching women about pistols. She struggled with the idea of introducing her Packing Pink customers to the world of shotguns and the outdoors, fearing that they weren’t looking for that opportunity. As fate would have it, during this time of internal struggle over her brand and offerings, some friends introduced her to Ducks Unlimited. After attending one of their banquets, she was hooked, and realized there WAS an outlet for women to be introduced to shotguns.

Thus was born Anna V Outdoors, a complimentary brand to Packing Pink, but one that serves an entirely different purpose. She realized women wanted more fundamentals and knowledge about shooting sporting clays, handling shotguns and bird hunting. Because of the excitement this new brand offers, she has been able to introduce women of all ages, backgrounds, shooting abilities and levels of enthusiasm to sporting clays, competition shooting and watching dogs work in the field while wingshooting.