A Texas sign company, Hornet Signs, wanted to draw up some extra attention for its business and decided to create a truck decal featuring a woman tied up and bound.
What was the purpose of this idea? KWTX News 10 in Waco, Texas reported that Hornet Signs put the decal on the back of an employee’s truck to show how realistic its signs are.
According to Huffington Post , the decal shows a blonde woman in jeans curled up on the bed of a pickup truck, her hair obscuring her face and her hands and feet tied with rope. It’s meant to be slapped on a truck’s tailgate, creating an optical illusion of an actual woman lying in distress .
The company simply wanted to show possible costumers that their decals where realistic, proving that Hornet Signs puts their all into their work.
A female employee agreed to climb into the back of a truck, be tied up, her hair tossed in front of her face to hide her identity, and then be photographed.
Another employee then volunteered to put the finished decal on their truck and drive around to see what reactions the decal would get.
The company had hoped for good feedback because of how real the image looked.
But instead of getting positive feedback, the Texas company’s truck decal got very negative feedback from the public. Just check out some of the comments left by KWTX News 10 viewers on the photo which was posted to the news stations Facebook page:
[fb link=”https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151832207040742&set=a.458346775741.250709.197881290741&type=1?] KWTX News 10 Facebook Embed[/fb]
Some of the comments read as follows:
Donna Wadzeck i saw it the other day…i think it is totally inappropriate and cannot even imagine what it would be marketing other than abuse!!! epic fail!
Maribel Pascual Llanas Why couldn’t it have been an image of a hog, a deer or some sort of animal…But a image of a female that is just uncalled for…this should not be a laughing matter! So much of this happens everyday and for it to be advertised!? I just don’t agree for that specific image. Just my opinion….
Robert Douglas West So what’s the name of the company and where is the women in the photo? How do we know this wasn’t an actual photo from human trafficking? This company needs to bring this women forward to let everyone know there is nothing criminal going on. This picture is an example of companies not thinking through the implications of their “marketing”
Not all the comments where negative, many applaud the detail work of the image, and agree that while the image isn’t the smartest choice, the shock sure worked as a way to get the company noticed.
“I wasn’t expecting the reactions that we got, nor was it really anything we certainly condone or anything else,” Hornet Signs owner Brad Kolb told KWTX News 10 . “But it was just something…we had to put out there to see who notices it.”
The Huffington Post continued on to say that, even with this truck decal controversy , he has seen a rise in decal orders.
What do you think of Hornet Signs Texas truck decal? It was one heck of a marketing tool, but could a different image have generated better feedback?
[Image by KWTX News 10 via WWN]
