You know what’s cool? In 2025, Maclyn once again teamed up with Special Olympics Illinois (SOILL) to promote the Polar Plunge, one of their biggest annual fundraisers. By pivoting their marketing strategy and going big on digital, we helped SOILL blast through their original fundraising goal of $2.5 million to raise over $3 million—funding that supports SOILL athletes.

You know what’s really cool? The 2025 Polar Plunge marketing budget was 18% smaller than the 2024 budget. And yet, we helped SOILL raise over 20% more funds.

Here’s how we did more with less.

1. We Pivoted Our Strategy.

Going into 2025, we knew that we had to do more with less. With a leaner marketing budget, plus higher costs on pretty much everything, our 2024 strategy wasn’t going to cut it.

So, we pivoted. We started with our usual Polar Plunge marketing tactics – from social media posts to traditional media and public relations – while shifting strategy, allocating more dollars to digital and less to traditional media.

2. We Went Big on Digital.

In 2024, we spent 73% of our budget on traditional media buys and only 27% on digital. In 2025, we balanced things out, with 52% of our budget going to traditional media and 48% to digital. This allowed us to reach a bigger audience for a lower cost.

Maclyn also introduced new tactics to the Polar Plunge campaign, including promoted social media posts, AdWords, paid email, and CTV ads. We even saved our client money by funding their AdWords campaign through a Google for Nonprofits grant.

3. We Leaned into Some Very Cool Creative.

At the end of the day, our marketing tactics are only as strong as our creative work—you really can’t have one without the other.

For this year’s Polar Plunge campaign, our creative was big, bold, and (of course) very cool. Featuring dramatic shots of past participants, plus pops of color and a fun call-to-action, this year’s campaign got the blood pumping and inspired thousands to “Jump in. Be cool. And take the plunge.”

The Results Are In

All of this came together – the strategy, the tactics, and the creative – to create a winning marketing campaign for Special Olympics Illinois. Here are a few highlights:

• SOILL’s original fundraising goal was $2.5 million. When they saw that they were going to surpass it, they made a stretch goal of $2.75 million. In the end, they raised over $3 million to support their athletes.
• Compared to 2024, our 2025 campaign raised 20% more dollars on a budget that was 18% smaller.
• Nearly all our tactics outperformed industry benchmarks.
• Our public relations impact significantly increased over 2024’s results.
• We scored over 1.29 million social media impressions and more than 20,000 display ad impressions.

Our Key Takeaway?

In marketing, it pays to be flexible, nimble, and fearless. To quote the Polar Plunge campaign, “You gotta go all in.”