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Mud Season. Not.

Written by: Tom Peters

Article Overview: It's (still) "mud season" in Vermont, courtesy this winter's abundance of snow. Cars and trucks, in particular, look like flying mud balls.

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Mud Season. Not.

It's (still) "mud season" in Vermont, courtesy this winter's abundance of snow. Cars and trucks, in particular, look like flying mud balls.

While on my speed walk yesterday, I passed through the Equinox Hotel parking lot—Manchester VT. They are undergoing, under new owners, a massive renovation. The contractor is Bread Loaf Construction, probably VT's best, out of Middlebury.

Bread Loaf folks aren't as smart as they think, as I see it. That is, they apparently don't know it's mud season. Every contractor's truck in the parking lot—and the FedEx and UPS trucks, too—confirmed the "mud ball" image I just pointed out.

Except for Bread Loaf's. There were two BL trucks in the lot, both sizeable pickups. Both, in BL tradition, painted fire engine red.

And neither—and here I do not exaggerate—had the tiniest trace of dirt or mud or even dust.

Later in the afternoon, I was having a long interview with a top dog at the ad agency TBWAChiatDay, and, not surprisingly, the topic turned to branding. Out of my mouth, unbidden, popped "Branding is a squeaky clean bright red contractor's truck in mud season in Vermont." In fact, we talked about the fact that branding is, well, about ... Everything. On the one hand, that's not very helpful. On the other hand, it reminds us that nothing, absolutely nothing, is irrelevant to individual branding—or branding of a construction company in VT or Megacorp Inc. As a quote from David D'Alessandro, in Career Warfare, goes, "It's always showtime."

(I know, I know—I should have taken a picture. Sorry.)

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Article Tags: ad agency, alessandro, ball image, bl, bread loaf, construction company, equinox, equinox hotel, fedex, fire engine, massive renovation, megacorp, middlebury, mud ball, mud balls, mud season, showtime, tbwa chiat day, top dog, ups

About the Author: Tom Peters
RSS for Tom's articles - Visit Tom's website

Tom & Bob Waterman coauthored In Search of Excellence in 1982; the book was named by NPR (in 1999) as one of the "Top Three Business Books of the Century," and ranked as the "greatest business book of all time" in a poll by Britain's Bloomsbury Publishing (2002). Tom followed Search with a string of international bestsellers: A Passion for Excellence (1985, with Nancy Austin), Thriving on Chaos (1987), Liberation Management (1992: acclaimed as the "Management Book of the Decade" for the '90s), The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations (1993), The Pursuit of WOW! (1994); The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness (1997); and in 1999 a series of books on Reinventing Work: The Brand You50, The Project50 and The Professional Service Firm50. In 2003 Tom and publisher Dorling Kindersley released Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age; the revolutionary book, an immediate No.1 international best seller, aims to do no less than reinvent the business book through vibrant, energetic presentation of critical ideas.

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