British subsidiary
In 1903 a British subsidiary of the Force Food Company was formed to import the cereal to Europe. A slightly modified version of Sunny Jim and his jingles caught the fancy of British consumers. A. C. Fincken, a former employee of the Force Food Company, set up an agency in 1910 to import American cereals to the UK. The cereal, and the Sunny Jim character achieved wide success in Britain, at its peak in 1930 selling 12.5 million packages. In 1932 the cereal was reintroduced into the United States by Herbert C. Rice, an Englishman involved in radio production in Buffalo. He introduced The H-Bar-O Rangers, a popular radio adventure serial for boys involving another permutation of the Sunny Jim character, and linked to an advertising campaign for the cereal. It didn't last.
Since 1954 the cereal was manufactured in the UK for domestic sale. A.C. Fincken & Co., Ltd. was sold to Rank Hovis McDougall, a subsidiary of the Nestle Company, in 1985. An unusual marketing campaign in the 1970s was focussed on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway: perhaps successful, but exposed to a very narrow market.[7] A pre decimal coin collection was available with all 10 coins of ER2 including the farthing, circa 1986-88.[8]
Manufacture of Force cereal ceased in 2013,[5]< the reason cited being poor sales, although in the last few years of production the cereal had been difficult to find due to having very few retail outlets, latterly only Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Ocado. The Sunny Jim mascot continued to be used in the United Kingdom until the cereal's discontinuation.
Since then, the Force wheat flakes brand was revived for UK consumers, and was acquired by Nestlé. It was, but is no longer, for sale on the Waitrose website. [9]
Sunny Jim
The character on boxes of Force cereal was created in the United States in 1902 by writer Minnie Maud Hanff and illustrator Dorothy Ficken (the mother of Fred Gwynne), initially for an advertising campaign. Rather than selling the benefits of eating wheat, which Hanff assumed customers already knew, her copy for the original advertisements told stories in verse, such as this one:
The advertisements featured slogans such as "Better than a Vacation" and "A Different Food for Indifferent Appetites." Other verses included:
and
This last rhyme became a familiar catchphrase.
Also used was the slogan "When skies are grey and times are grim, wake up and smile with Sunny Jim", which appeared on advertising coins.
The campaign was wildly successful at promoting the character of Sunny Jim. Printers' Ink stated September 17, 1902 that "No current novel or play is so universally popular. He is as well-known as President Roosevelt or J. Pierpont Morgan." However, the cereal company turned its advertising account over to a different firm, which did not approve of humor in advertising and more or less abandoned the campaign.
The Sunny Jim wheat flakes character is referenced in the lyrics to the song 1000 Umbrellas by XTC on the Skylarking
