Rosie the talking cow smiles at Fieldays

Naive, enthusiastic and ready to take on the world. Sounds like an eager child ready for their first day of school But this child is a cow. Rosie the cow, to be precise – the New Zealand dairy industry’s new “cowbassador”.

A Shrek-type character, Rosie is an animated cow that talks, smiles and laughs.

She lives on a website and has a Facebook page which will show children her adventures across the country, learning about dairy farming and all the bits in between.

DairyNZ’s senior communications advisor, Alex Fear, is part of the team working on the concept and the unveiling at Fieldays 2011.

“Rosie is just so fun,” she says. “I can’t help but talk about her as if she’s a real person. Cow? I’m not even sure.

“She’s just a nice interactive way to engage with children and their parents, because mum and dad are there helping with their homework too.”

As part of the Go Dairy campaign for DairyNZ, Hamilton’s King St Advertising created the website to inform children and their parents about dairy farming and its significance to the New Zealand economy. Rosie’s job will entail being the face of the 4.4 million cows that roam our land to the 4.39 million people that roam the streets.

As an anatomically correct cow she has been signed off by DairyNZ vets.

She will be a resource in schools to help with subjects such as maths and social science.

“It could be counting herds of cows or for social science innovation – how progressively things have moved from milking by hand to robotic milking now,” Ms Fear says.

Teachers will have access to a related website for classroom resources.

King St’s accounts manager Katherine Parrott says creating a character from scratch has been a big challenge.

“We are just starting to the see magic of it now as the videos are getting developed.”

King St wanted to create a story that made Rosie as real as possible. It decided on her home farm just outside Raglan. Rosie is a kiwi-cross cow, half friesian and half jersey.

“It’s definitely about targeting kids, but we want it to be appealing to the adults as well. That’s where you need layering like Shrek; some of it will go straight over the kid’s heads and adults can have a giggle instead,” Ms Parrott says.

Initially Rosie will be aimed at five to eight year olds but over time this will extend out to older age groups.

The site has fun games to pass on information about the dairy industry to children.

“It’s the little things as well,” Ms Fear says. “For example, children could be in the car and see cows in a field and be able to recognise what type of cow they are, or if they are chewing the cud.”

As Fieldays draws closer, the excitement is building for everyone involved with Rosie. This is when the Rosie website  is being launched. She will have her own tent set up where people can come and find out a bit more about the dairy industry.

“We will have a costume Rosie there,” Ms Fear says.

There will be a story of how grass turns into milk and resources that kids can look at with their parents or guardians. Children can play the interactive games on iPads and use them for looking at the website.

This is only the beginning for Rosie, as both DairyNZ and King St have big things planned for her future. Rosie will travel around New Zealand at first, but soon she may be taking off overseas .