Friday, April 6, 2012

The GW doth protest too much, methinks

For those of you that do not know, the title comes from Hamlet where some chick keeps going on and on about how something is not true that people become suspicious that it is true.

I am sick of the GW blog, the emails and the damn Black Shirts extolling the virtues of the new paint. A few blog posts and the intro video would have been sufficient, but there are several "testimonial" videos on the blog. Now, I ain't even going to watch them because I know what they are going to say already. They are going to tell me how great and new and better the paints are and not really give me any details as to the how or why they are better. Testimonials are not reliable and this outpouring of praise seems disingenuous. I know when I am trying to be sold something and this feels like a sales pitch.


If the paints were as good as they were saying, then they could get by on their merits alone and testimonials would not be necessary. All they would need to do tell us they are out and put them out for sale. I mean, it is not like people are going to stop buying their paints at the GW store.

But that is not what they have done. Every few days there is another GW painter or a real guy from the streets telling us how awesome these new paints are. This seems like they are making a really big deal over something pretty minor. A more quiet release seems like an appropriate and measured response. All of this attention and infomercial-style sales pitches are making me doubt their reasons for changing the whole paint line and it makes me questions their motives.

What reason would GW have for changing their whole paint line? That seems like an expensive proposition given all the rebranding, relabeling and marketing that they have had to do. Not to mention the cost of developing and reformulating (still dubious on that last one) of all the paints. It seems that this would more likely be a cost cutting measure than altruism on their part. I find it more likely that they would look for a cheaper way to make their paint, while of course still charging us the same inflated prices, than how to make better paint.

Now all that is just wild speculation on my part. I have no real reason to suspect them of this other than my incredulity and all this hubbub. GW has produces some great innovations in the past. They really pioneered acrylic paints for artistic minis. Back in the day we had to use enamel paints and they were the worst! They also produces those awesome washes, so they can't be all bad.

I am just tired of it. It is another example of form over function. GW could be spending their time doing any number or other useful things other than convincing me that the new paints are so stellar and more awesomer than the old paints. Rather they waste their time convincing me and you to buy something that we are going to get anyway.

4 comments:

  1. Still waiting on mine to get here so I can give you the Fig-timonial on them.

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  2. I went into a store the other day and the black-shirt didn't even bring these up. It was kind of nice. I told him I needed a bottle of Devlan Mud and he walked right over and got me one off the old rack and that was it. It was, quite frankly, astounding.

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    Replies
    1. He didn't tell you how much better the new washes are and the 50 ways they are going to make you smarter, faster and more successful in business.

      Or maybe you have better black shirts than I do. Wanna trade?

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