Largemouth monitors and manages social media for Kangaroo Express and quickly noticed Twitter followers affectionately deemed this hot item a "Roo Cup". The deal was so popular that the 250,000 limited-edition cups that were anticipated to last through mid-July were sold out in just a few weeks!

In addition to offering guests an outstanding value, the introduction of the Roo Cups in June was also a way to encourage frequent store visits to raise money for the Kangaroo Express “Salute Our Troops” campaign, which launched Memorial Day weekend with a goal to raise $1 million for the USO, Wounded Warrior Project, and state-based military non-profits.

It was truly exciting to watch the Roo Cup frenzy unfold online, from high schoolers who decorated their cups to loving exclamations. But the PR challenge was: How do we harness this viral momentum? Here’s what we did:

To make @KrooExpress a part of the discussion, we quickly adopted the #RooCup hashtag to interact with fans and build our followers.

We played to the thrill of the chase and fed the witty bantering – of course, when you refill you go on a #RooRun (duh!).

And we also leveraged the Roo Cup passion as part of our Salute Our Troops media outreach. Largemouth pitched deals bloggers and shared information with local papers like the News & Observer and Charlotte Observer. Then we took the campaign even bigger by organizing a “Flag Day Roo Run” in Charleston, S.C. to coincide with the Salute Our Troops Jeep Tour.

In a perfect blending of viral momentum and feet-on-the-street engagement, the Flag Day Roo Run was a huge hit. Thirteen Roo mugs, in honor of our American flag’s 13 stripes representing the original 13 colonies, were hidden around town for lucky Charlestonians to find. Our team identified well-known landmarks and developed clues to share via Facebook and Twitter. We partnered with the Post & Courier Savvy Shopper blog and Lowcountry Parent magazine to share the clues, as well.

We donned the Roo Cups with an American flag, addresses of nearby stores, information about the Salute campaign and a call-to-action to post their photo to Facebook once they found the gem – which Chris took note of!

Since the cups were in such high demand, we found numerous people asking where they could be found it was important from a communications standpoint to keep people up-to-date via social media.

We will continue to tell the Roo Cup story through our media outreach. Though there were Roo Cup sightings in Greenville and Greer, S.C., if you haven’t grabbed a Roo Cup to call your own, it may be too late. Have no fear, Kangaroo Express just kicked off another great deal for everyone to enjoy – a hot dog and 20 oz. fountain drink for $1.50!

True “viral” gold is when something spreads on the Internet by surprise – and once it does, saddle up for the ride!