• by Adrienne W. Fawcett , October 4, 2006

Folgers coffee wants Americans to have a happy morning; Jimmy Dean is out to see they have a happy breakfast as well.

The purveyor of sausages and meats is rolling out a "Happy Breakfast" tour across the U.S. that will provide a hot, meaty and free breakfast to parents and children who stop by to visit the bus (when it's parked). For every free breakfast Jimmy Dean serves up, its parent company Sara Lee Corp. will donate $1 (capping out at $50,000) to America's Second Harvest, the largest charitable hunger-relief agency in the U.S.

The 20-city "Happy Breakfast" tour took off from St. Louis, Mo., in September and will travel through March to cities and rural areas in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Arkansas and Ohio, among others. According to America's Second Harvest, nearly 43 percent of its clientele lives in suburban and rural areas. Jimmy Dean's donation is intended to help provide important meals like breakfast to millions of children and their families.

Also tapping into the morning-is-good theme is Procter & Gamble Co.'s Folgers coffee. The brand has been running an ad campaign called "Tolerate Mornings," created by Saatchi & Saatchi, NY, which includes a wildly popular Web video where ethereal people sing "Happy Morning" to tired 20-somethings.

The theme--"Wake up you sleepy head, you can sleep when you are dead"--has a cynical tone that's notably absent in Jimmy Dean's earnest "Happy Breakfast" campaign, but both invoke a feel-good-in-the-a.m. mentality.

The Jimmy Dean tour also taps into another popular marketing trend: it has a consumer-generated media component. Jimmy Dean is asking interested people to provide a one-minute video clip of an influential person. The contest winner in each location will receive a year's supply of Jimmy Dean breakfast products while the nominator gets enough to last a month. The winning nominee also will be given a chance to win a $10,000 prize.