New Consultants Board Yakka Dee!

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Industry consultants Rachel Bardill (Bar Digital) and Liz Keynes have come on board the preschool hit Yakka Dee! to aid in the IP’s growth.

Bardill has developed products, games, video, social content and brand franchises for some of the biggest kids’ brands in the world. Keynes is a strategy specialist focused on identifying and growing children’s brands for the long term and previously worked with clients such as Aardman Animations, Magic Light Pictures, Acamar Films and more.

Bardill, Keynes and the Yakka Dee! team will focus on taking the IP into new markets, platforms and activations to further grow awareness and engagement.

Yakka Dee! comes from King Banana TV (Nikhil & Jay, Meet The Experts) and Beakus (Olobob Top, Big Lizard). It aims to encourage children to speak, helps children learn their first words and builds early language skills. It serves as a complete resource that covers every phoneme needed to speak the English language.

“Language acquisition is a prerequisite for all children as a building block for other learning skills such as literacy and numeracy, and yet many young children struggle with it for multiple reasons, sometimes neural, sometimes physical, as well as the huge number of children who are learning English as a second language,” Keynes said. “Dee can be a language-learning ambassador with huge potential reach as she engages, entertains and empowers children to help them cope with early language acquisition skills. Her unique connection with children is so exciting to explore in other applications and partnerships as we start to broaden the opportunities to engage whilst still keeping the heartland of language acquisition a really positive and fun experience.”

“The potential for Yakka Dee! to grow is powerful,” Bardill commented. “It’s already a trusted brand with a strong audience on CBeebies and YouTube. Our goal is to build on that success and develop Yakka Dee! into a multi-platform franchise that engages both kids and parents across the full ecosystem. The world of kids’ media has changed, and as a team, we will take this brand into the future.”

“We’ve always known the potential for Dee,” added King Banana TV’s Katie Simmons. “We want to make sure she is reaching as many children as possible to help improve lives. Speaking and communication is the foundation of everything from learning, building relationships, expressing thoughts… Yakka Dee! engaging children in more ways is such a positive step.”