UK dairy unveils ringtone to promote milk
devised by the dairy industry to get kids back into milk and
encourage them to think about the white stuff's benefits.
It is the dairy industry's answer to the 'Crazy Frog', only not as annoying. Britain's Milk Development Council (MDC) has released the Mootone, featuring Charlotte and the Barbershop Cows, as part of its School Milk Project.
The project was recently awarded funding by the European Commission and aims to educate teachers, parents and children about the health benefits of drinking milk.
Diane Cannon, School Milk Project Manager, said: "Charlotte the Cow has already proved a big hit in the interactive CD Rom we produced this year.
"Schools that start milk schemes get a copy of the CD plus a leaflet for the children. Charlotte is getting the message across to children about the health benefits of milk in a fun and engaging way."
One experienced teacher based near Nottingham was more sceptical of Mootone's ability to win kids over to milk.
"I think it would take more than a ringtone. It usually depends on what they have got used to drinking from an early age," she told www.DairyReporter.com.
Some may also raise questions about the ethics of offering mobile phone ringtones in a project aimed mainly at primary school children, aged between seven and 11 years.
Cannon said it did not necessarily mean kids running around with Mootone on their phones. "If this ringtone can promote awareness of the Project's website, and through that the work of the project, then even more children can benefit."
The MDC claimed that the School Milk Project as a whole had helped to get more than 250,000 children across Britain enrolled into milk drinking schemes.
This, it said, represented 8.5m litres of milk per year - something that could help a dairy industry that recently saw the first rise in UK milk consumption for 30 years.
Mootone is free to download from the School Milk Project website.
