The Chicago Polar Plunge has been a Chicago tradition for more than 20 years. The event draws thousands of participants to North Avenue Beach each winter to raise funds for Special Olympics Chicago/Special Children's Charities. As we returned to an in-person event in 2022, we launched our Back to the Beach campaign, which highlighted the festive atmosphere of this event and included a fun juxtaposition of tropical and surf imagery with an event focused on cold weather.
Digital Marketing for the event took three major tactics. For each, I managed budgeting, scheduling, targeting, and reviewing analytics for each ad. I also either produce ad content in house, or worked with vendors to create the content.
1. Video for paid media and paid social advertising.
We worked with Skalawag Productions to create a series of videos that were used in a range of media including PSAs on the Big 10 Network, paid social ads on Facebook, Instagram, and twitter, and pre-roll video ads NBC Chicago's website (as well as Spanish language versions on Telemundo Chicago's site).
For this ad, I worked with our stakeholders and the producers to develop the concept, ensure message and branding are represented, review and edit the script, and film the ad (that is me in the bear costume).
The pre-roll videos were incredibly successful in both English and Spanish.
2. Paid and organic social media incentive promotions
We used paid and organic social media to target previous participants and supporters and encourage registration and fundraising with incentives. I developed a range of incentives to hit multiple interests and connect with our goals. The most prominent one from this campaign was a custom Hawaiian shirt we had made and gave to the first 20 participants to raise $1,000.
3. Additional paid ads
We supplemented our video ads with a range of static ads that ran on key news sites including Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Sun Times.