‘Kidnapped woman’ truck art has Texas company on hotseat

Marie Sutherland

WACO, TEXAS — A Texas sign company’s tailgate art venture is raising eyebrows, blood pressure and the number of 9-1-1 calls being placed.

Hornet Signs has lit a powderkeg of local controversy by creating a truck tailgate decal depicting a woman who has been tied up in the back of the truck bed.

The image, modelled by one of the company’s employees, looks so real that several concerned citizens called 911 to report a possible kidnapping, according to CarBuzz.

Hornet Signs owner, Brad Kolb (see video below), admits he was a little taken aback by reaction to the decal. He noted the company doesn’t “condone this by any means. It was more or less something we put out there to see who noticed it.”

And noticed it was. But is get-attention-by-any-means a good business strategy?

The blowback has been pretty heated, with a Facebook page devoted to opinions on the shockingly lifelike decal garnering almost nothing but negative feedback.

Noted one woman: “Abduction or any violence against women is not funny or cute.”

Watch the video here and see some other samples of Hornet Signs’ attention-grabbing decals.