After more than 100 years always with a smile on her face, The Laughing Cow suddenly wiped it off. The brand changed its iconic packaging and socials without telling anyone why, leaving people to wonder: what finally got to her?

The answer came through a Jimmy Kimmel collab and a social challenge. She stopped laughing because we’ve been letting trivial disagreements - like Oxford commas, reclining airplane seats and group chat etiquette - drive a wedge between us.

(Wedge of cheese - get it?)

Well, I’m just happy it’s not a PETA collab.  

But while we were waiting for the answer, trivial was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Guesses were:

• She and Red Bull are getting divorced.
• She’s been laughing too long, her jaw got tired.
• Vegans stopped buying her products and she’s losing money.
• How corrupted the cattle industry is.
• Farmers can’t afford to keep their farms.
• For World Mental Health Day.
• The state of the economy.
• Life has gotten too serious.
• Just look at how bad the world is right now.
• “Same girl.” (Not a guess, just someone agreeing)

I had some of the same thoughts, plus two more:

1. maybe she’d been encouraging toxic positivity all this time, or
2. maybe she finally realized that, as a woman cow, she doesn’t need to laugh to succeed in life.

(To be fair, she does have a bit of a “what’s up bitches?” look on the new packaging.)

Yes, wedges should spread love, not divide us apart. Very sweet. Very cheese. 

But there seems to be a plethora of reasons why no one, including her, can laugh right now. There’s something funny yet powerful about how we collectively trauma-dumped our baggage onto a cow.

As strategists, we spend most of our time trying to get people to tell us what’s on their minds. Apparently, all we had to do was make a cow sad and people just offered it up. 

100 years of laughing consistently apparently buys you one very successful mental breakdown, and a lot of free ideas. Branding is so fun (or sad in her case).