The Laughing Cow turned its most recognizable product into a vehicle, proving the package is the advertising.

I saw this thing and immediately thought of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

Exceptin’ it’s a gigantic wedge of cheese.

And yeah, The Laughing Cow is the French brand I remember as La Vache qui rit.

It was created in France in 1921, and those little individually wrapped triangular portions arrived a few years later in essentially the form we recognize today.

The brand says about 10 million portions are now sold every day in 120 countries. 

I’ve always had a soft spot for the stuff.

The cheese is yummy, but the packaging may be even more memorable.

You open the round box, pull out a shiny silver wedge, find that little red tab and peel the foil away. It comes off slick and neat, and crumples up real nice.

That ritual has been part of the product for generations.

So somebody had the wonderfully ridiculous idea of making a vehicle shaped like one.

It immediately reminded me of another work of genius in putting a package on wheels: Oscar Mayer‘s Wienermobile.

You may recall that Kraft Heinz renamed it the Frankmobile in 2023. I still don’t understand why anyone would voluntarily abandon a name as magnificent as Wienermobile.

Fortunately, the mistake lasted only four months and the Wienermobile was back, baby.

What I like about the Laughing Cow vehicle is how little explaining it requires.

It’s a cheese wedge, except gigantic, and it drives.

You recognize the shape, the silver exterior, the red cow and the typography from an absurd distance.

And there’s some lovely history behind that idea.

The Laughing Cow’s identity even traces back to vehicles. During World War I, soldiers decorated military supply vehicles with humorous symbols. Illustrator Benjamin Rabier created a laughing cow for Léon Bel’s unit, an image that inspired the brand. 

The company also has a long history of taking its identity onto the road, including promotional vehicles and appearances in the Tour de France caravan.

More than a century later, it’s still doing it.

There’s a useful product-marketing lesson buried inside this enormous piece of “cheese”.

Distinctive packaging can become an asset far beyond the wrapping material.

Coca-Cola has its contour bottle. Toblerone has its triangular box. Tiffany has its blue box. Oscar Mayer has a hot dog.

And The Laughing Cow has that wonderful little silver wedge (as well as a gigantic one).

When you’ve built something recognizable enough that you can make it 12 feet tall, put wheels underneath it and have people immediately know what brand it represents, you’ve transcended packaging.

You’ve created an icon.

If you’d like help creating and marketing products people feel compelled to buy, the product marketing consultants at Graphos Product can help.