Jimmy Dean Sausage Baseball Card Promotion of the 1990s
In 1991, the Jimmy Dean sausage company launched an unconventional and highly successful promotional campaign involving the inclusion of baseball cards inside specially marked packages of their pork sausage links. The promotion was aimed at capitalizing on the ubiquitous popularity of both sausage and baseball cards at the time. Over the following years, millions of Americans would open Jimmy Dean sausage packs hoping to find rarely inserted hit cards of their favorite players.
Jimmy Dean, the brand founded by the country musician of the same name in 1969, had become one of the top selling packaged sausage products in supermarkets nationwide by the early 1990s. Seeking a creative way to boost already strong sales even higher, the marketing department dreamed up the idea of including baseball cards as an added bonus. They knewAmericans’ passion for the national pastime and collecting cards would make for a naturally engaging promotional element.
After securing licensing deals with the Major League Baseball Players Association as well as photo rights from Topps, the leading baseball card manufacturer, Jimmy Dean began printing custom card inserts featuring current star players from all 26 MLB teams at the time. Each 34g link package would contain one random common card while special ‘hits’ like autographs and parallel serial numbered versions were inserted at far rarer rates.
The packaging proudly proclaimed “Baseball Card Inside!” with depictions of players adorning the front. Upon release in Spring 1991, the cards proved an immediate success. Sausage sales jumped over 10% in supermarkets proudly displaying large promotional displays and bundles stacked with carousels of packages. Being able to potentially find a coveted Derek Jeter rookie card or Barry Bonds autograph in a package of breakfast meat was a thrilling surprise that kept customers coming back.
Over the next five seasons through 1995, Jimmy Dean would issue new baseball card series each year featuring the current year’s top sluggers, hurlers and prospects. Specialty inserts paid homage to retired legends as well. The sophisticated card design and photography truly captured the prestige and heritage of America’s Pastime. While the common cards were still coveted by young collectors, it was the case hit parallels and memorabilia cards that drove the most feverish searches of sausage packs.
A phenomenon resulted as parents, kids and adults alike gleefully tore into Jimmy Dean links and stripes at home and ballparks nationwide hoping for card treasure. The promotion even inspired enthusiastic trading and resale markets. Memorabilia hits like signed balls or bats garnered healthy trade values. Some of the rarest serial numbered parallel cards from early years have increased tremendously in secondary market price guided by their demand as a uniquely novel part of sports collectibles history.
The promotion had succeeded well beyond all expectations in boosting sausage sales and endearing the brand to a whole new generation of customers. By the mid-1990s the trading card bubble of the early 90s had begun to pop. While still popular, the speculative frenzy of cards had cooled. With Topps ending its baseball contracts, Jimmy Dean decided 1995 would be the final year for its highly popular card insert program.
Today, over 25 years later, those once ordinary sausage packaging baseball cards have taken on new significance and fascination as a relic of pop culture marketing cross-pollination during the golden era of cards and fandom. Their quirkiness and uniqueness assure the Jimmy Dean issues will always be a diverting conversation piece and source of nostalgia for those who grew up with them or experienced the novelty first-hand. For dedicated collectors, finding complete runs or rare hit cards still tucked away in old collections provides exhilaration and reminds of simpler times when America’s favorite breakfast meat came with a side of childhood memories and unexpected sports treasures.
The Jimmy Dean sausage baseball card promotion of the early to mid-1990s represents one of the most unorthodox yet successful cross-promotional campaigns in history. By marrying America’s love for sausage, cards and baseball, the brand delighted millions, boosted sales tremendously and embedded itself in the history of sports memorabilia as a true oddity and conversation piece that is still discussed and collected today. It serves as a reminder of the innovative thinking that can result from marrying unrelated passions to spark cultural phenomenon.