‍Apparel and plush launches in main nursery aisle of 160 Extra stores and 40 F&F stores, backed by social media drive and influencer support.

Tesco has shown its commitment to the licensed baby category, and new brands emerging within it, launching a new initiative with popular CBeebies show The Baby Club in its main nursery aisle this week.

The cross category launch will see apparel from Poetic Brands and plush from Golden Bear feature in the nursery aisle of 160 Extra stores, while a further 40 stores will also carry the products in a dedicated F&F bay.

A social media campaign will support the initiative, with four films based on the themes of eating, sleeping/calm time, play time and changing having been created and including contributions from viewers of the hit CBeebies show. Influencer support will also be helping to further raise the profile.

The initiative is exclusive to Tesco until August, with Rockpool Licensing – the licensing agent for The Baby Club – then looking to take The Baby Club trade-wide.

“Tesco is showing great commitment and a lot of enthusiasm for The Baby Club,” Vickie O’Malley, md of Rockpool Licensing told PreschoolNews.net. “We are honoured by their belief in us and so excited by the opportunity. The in-store profile for The Baby Club is going to be second-to-none and it is a hugely exciting time.”

Natalie Ackerman, licence manager F&F Clothing at Tesco, continued: “As soon as we were made aware that there was an opportunity to work on The Baby Club, we jumped at the chance to create a licensing range across baby. It’s an incredibly strong brand and its values of education, interaction and play are so important to our customers.

“We have worked incredibly hard alongside Poetic Brands and Rockpool Licensing to create a really fun baby range and not forgetting the much wanted Baby Bear. We can’t wait to see our customers reaction to the highly anticipated launch. The Baby Club group have worked on a fantastic marketing campaign which really does enhance this range further and we expect to deliver strong sales making way for future growth plans for this licence.”

The first series of The Baby Club launched in March 2019, aimed at the parents and carers of babies aged between six and 18 months. Each episode is hosted by either Giovanna Fletcher or Nigel Clarke – along with Baby Bear – who lead on-screen activities while encouraging viewers to join in, exploring everyday objects through activities, songs and stories.

The third series is now airing, while there are also 60 episodes on iPlayer (as well as 28 compilation clips), numerous albums on Spotify, a book from DK and two podcasts on BBC Sounds (one adult facing and one baby facing). Two lockdown series were also commissioned by the BBC – Baby Club at Home and Toddler Club at Home.

Speaking about the move into consumer products, Emma Hyman, co-creator of The Baby Club, said that it was vital for the products created to embody the values of the show itself, with interactivity built in as many ways as possible.

“These aren’t just products,” Emma explained. “Everything we do has heart and is rooted in deep care for our audience – both babies and grown ups – and the clothing and plush ranges are an extension of that. There’s an emotional resonance with the brand – we’re all so passionate about that and what we give to people.”