Crafting a sustainable kids brand with a long tail has perhaps never been more difficult, thanks to fragmented audiences, lots of competition and the speed at which childhood is changing. That’s why distributor and IP developer CAKE has acquired a minority stake in KidsKnowBest, betting on the data that this UK-based research company has gathered for almost 10 years to inform new projects and provide insights into what kids really want to see on screen.

Beyond tracking US and UK kid behavior, trends and brand affinity, KidsKnowBest also has a marketing business that puts kids IPs in front of their target audience. And it has worked with many of the market’s biggest players, including Disney, Mattel, Hasbro and Moonbug.

CAKE and KidsKnowBest will each continue to operate independently, but the big change is that KidsKnowBest will now be able to work with CAKE through every step of developing and marketing its brands.

Typically, IP owners looking for insights about what kids are into will commission reports, surveys and research, and they might tap companies like KidsKnowBest to handle marketing plays. But this acquisition means KidsKnowBest will go beyond that sort of short-term partnership and feed audience intelligence directly into CAKE’s creative and development work, says Joel Silverman (pictured, right), founder and CEO of the research company. “We would help on the initial testing stages,” he says. “[And] through our marketing work, we would also help drive awareness of new IPs.”

There’s also potential for the partners to work together with digital creators and influencers, which is a space that KidsKnowBest is already active in and could help CAKE break into, adds Silverman. Plus, the research company plans to bring CAKE into its conversations with big brand clients looking to reach kids through content.

This deal (which has been in the works for a while) is perfectly timed, since both companies are seeing an increase in big brands—like Chick-Fil-A and Crayola—getting into content. Being able to offer these deep-pocketed companies a combination of research, content production and distribution services is a strong package, says CAKE CEO Ed Galton (pictured, left).

“We [as an industry] rely heavily on experience and culture that we hope is backed by data, and KidsKnowBest has those insights,” says Galton. “It has [its finger on the] pulse of what’s going on in the industry.” And as brands become a bigger part of the business, it’s becoming increasingly important to have insights into ways to help them reach kids. “The business of building brands is becoming more important than the creation of IPs,” Galton adds. “We want to be more in step with brands and what they want.”