You GoGirl! Risdall McKinney Public Relations helped turn a surgeon’s dream into a national media phenomenon and business startup success in a matter of weeks with a product launch that leveraged social media and PR. The campaign has resulted in feature stories on “Today,” “The Doctors,” “Chelsea Lately,” both Glamour and Marie Claire magazine’s blog, and thousands of additional online and traditional media hits.

The GoGirl story of empowering women’s active lifestyles takes national media and online communities by storm.

How do you get women to fall in love with a F.U.D. (female urinary device) that helps women go to the bathroom standing up?

Invented as a medical device by a Minnesota-based surgeon, GoGirl enables active lifestyles. The product was launched at the Minneapolis Women’s Expo in January 2009 as part of an integrated marketing effort designed to make women feel comfortable — light-hearted even — when they first encountered the product. That launch included a branded Mini Cooper and portable restrooms, as well as other events, product giveaways, online advertising, SEO, social media outreach to online communities representing different active lifestyles of women, and more.

Although the initial media launch was primarily local, it spread virally to television and radio media in other markets, as well as national media outlets. RMPR responded to an inquiry from the producers of “The Doctors” — a Dr. Phil spinoff and nationwide hit talk show in which four doctors tackle health topics in an entertaining yet practical format. RMPR followed up with a colorful media kit that included product samples, T-shirts, fact sheets and the product launch news release. After a couple of phone interviews and a large shipment of product samples for the studio audience, a two-and-a-half minute segment on the syndicated show was taped, airing March 17.

The media coverage so far has included more than two dozen television news stories throughout the country, dozens of major radio drive-time interviews, thousands of blog and online mentions, and signature appearances on “Today,” “Chelsea Lately,” “The Dish,” and more. From a business perspective, Web traffic has reached as high as 36,000 unique visitors in a day and the first manufacturing run of 10,000 units (expected to last six months) sold out in just two and a half months. The day the segment ran on the “The Doctors,” GoGirl sold more units than any day to date, making it the campaign’s brightest success so far.