Today, a major paint company admitted to tricking its customers into buying paint they didn’t need by introducing new painting techniques to ‘jazz up’ their living spaces, and then forcing them to buy more paint to cover up the hideous results.
Titanic Paints based out of Buffalo, New York, made the confession when it’s new President and CEO, Johann Johannssonn, called for more transparency in the company’s public relations. Johannssonn joined the company after its former President and CEO retired after 50 years of overseeing the business.
“I was appalled at the sheer audacity of our actions. To be so bold as to suggest to our customers to use a technique on their walls just so that we could sell them another pint, another gallon, of our premium, high-grade, no-spill, extra latex, did I say quality? paint.”
Mr. Johannssonn was, in fact, referring to the technique of ‘color splash’ where a designer will paint a wall a solid color, and then take a splash of a contrasting color and lightly brush it willy-nilly over the first coat of paint.
“It is hideous,” said Johannssonn, referring to one method in particular where a metallic paint such as gold or bronze is splashed over a flat-based paint.
We may call it ‘Spanish modern’ but it looks more like ‘Mayan massacre,'” said the outraged honcho.
Titanic Paints has received quite a bit of push back from home interior designer magazines, including Designer Homes Today, Home Do-Over, and Quickie Flip Ideas. The magazines have been relying on touch up and make-over tips from Titanic paints for over a dozen decades, and learning that the whole time they were being scammed, or rather, their readers were being scammed, comes as quite a shock.
One magazine editor and home design guru, Martha White, was particularly non-plussed over the confession.
“I am bewildered as to why Mr. Johannssonn is coming forward at this time, when so many people across America have relied on their company for years to be the first stop in painting advice.
“More importantly, it behooves me to ask Mr. Johannssonn what he intends to do about my April issue of Home Do-Over, where we have already refinished the interior of an entire home in a faux bamboo design. If word of this gets to the owner of that house, as I am sure it will, it will cost us dearly to buy all that paint to re-decorate the home…” Ms. White stopped.
Mr. Johannssonn’s announcement comes at precisely the time homeowners are in the process of finishing up their new looks for spring, and, in his own words,
“I just hope I’m not too late to save you from a hideous mistake, but if I am, you can find our paints at any major do-it-yourself store in more colors than ever before.”
It looked so easy! I tried faux decorating back in the day… yeah, it's not even CLOSE to as easy as it looks. Looked like a muppet got raped on my walls.