Behr Paint Looks to Extend Millennial ‘DIY Boom’ With TikTok Influencers

Sarah Teresinski has been upcycling for over a decade. What started as a hack to make inexpensive but unique clothes for her young daughter turned into a career in sustainable DIY design.

“I was always working in some world of repurposing, and then I was doing room design for people where I would show them how to rework and reuse what they have and shop secondhand,” she told Newsweek. “So whenever I do design projects…I always try to keep it like 80 percent repurposed because if it’s that old, and it looks that great, it’s gonna last way longer than anything you would buy at a big-box store.”

Teresinski has been featured in Architectural Digest, as well as on the Today show with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager and The Drew Barrymore Show. Recently, Teresinski branched out from sharing her designs with her more than 118 million followers on Instagram (where she’s known as redeux_style) and tried TikTok. That’s when things “took off,” she said.

“I show people how to really take trash finds or things already in their own homes, really simple DIYs that anyone can do, and then [create] beautiful spaces,” she said.

The concept of upcycling projects has been prevalent in the home improvement and interior design spaces for decades. But in recent years, more people seem to be drawn to do-it-yourself projects, thanks to both the rise of social media and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Andy Lopez, the head of marketing for Behr, said the pandemic created a “DIY boom” as people—especially millennials—stayed home more and occupied their time with updates and projects around the house. And those projects were not just enjoyed by those who transformed their own homes—they were shared online with millions of other people.

“I think the feeling of doing the project, actually doing something yourself, you do have that kind of dopamine feeling of like, ‘I just finished it, I’m excited, I want to share it,'” Lopez told Newsweek.

Behr was recently featured as one of Newsweek‘s Most Trusted Brands in America 2024 and was ranked No. 1 in the interior paint, exterior paint and exterior stain categories.

Newsweek partnered with BrandSpark to survey over 26,000 American consumers on which brands they use and trust the most. Behr’s high marks in overall trust came from the durability and quality of its products, the ease of use, price, range of colors and availability in stores.

Stuck inside during pandemic lockdowns, people passed the time on social media, especially the emerging platform of TikTok, watching people from around the world make sourdough starters, do viral dances and knit crocheted sweaters. Soon, thrifting hauls and room transformations captivated audiences.

“There’s a lot of people that do a lot of really great DIYs and there’s a whole span of styles of DIY,” Teresinski said. “People have been trash flipping and repurposing DIY forever.”

DIY projects not only allow people to be creative, but they are also a sustainable and cost-effective way to transform or improve their wardrobes or living spaces.

Behr recognized the growing impact of online DIY influencers and was able to capitalize on it, in part, with its To DIY For competition.

In 2022, Behr brought together DIY influencers to compete in projects, using the company’s products, over the course of four weeks on TikTok, all in the pursuit of being named “Behr’s Ultimate DIYer.” The winner was voted on by users in the comments section and walked away with the title and $20,000.

Both Teresinski and North Carolina-based DIYer Ashley Basnight (known as smashingdiy on social media) joined the competition in the first and second seasons, respectively, mostly because they already used Behr products and were looking to engage with fellow influencers and users on TikTok.

After succeeding in the different flipping and design tasks, both creators were crowned as Behr’s first and second “Ultimate DIYer.”

“They’re very supportive of the DIY community,” Teresinski said of Behr. “They’re one company, especially paint company, that I see putting an emphasis on the creator, the designer, the influencer, and that’s pretty cool. They’re very smart to do that.”

Basnight said a big reason people enter the DIY space is because of budget.

“Especially now with inflation and materials prices being so expensive, people want to be able to save money,” she said.

Basnight said she “stumbled” into DIYing because she wanted a new dining room table but didn’t want to pay $800 for someone else to make it.

Instead, she built the table herself and posted her work online. Basnight began documenting her carpentry and home improvement work and eventually quit her job as a software engineer to do DIY influencing full time.

“People want to be able to do things themselves, they want to cut costs,” she said. “Maybe they just bought their first home and they spent all their savings on a down payment, so they don’t want to pay to have someone come fix it. So they look to the DIY influencers to help them be able to tackle it themselves.”

As people online turned to DIY and home improvement influencers for inspiration, Behr began to see an increase in social media engagement from audiences the company had not reached before. The marketing team began leveraging its social media channels to offer training and guidance on DIY projects and introduce new colors and products.

After the peak of the pandemic, Behr was determined to keep the DIY boom alive. The company’s focus became capitalizing on its social media burst and utilizing online influencers to best serve the newfound audience.

“With the younger generation, they’re not getting that same knowledge that’s passed down from older generations,” Lopez said. “Millennials, Gen Z aren’t spending as much time doing projects with their dad or with their grandfather, and so they are looking to the YouTubes of the world or they’re looking to social media to understand how to do a project as simple as painting. “

Another important factor in driving trust was the brand’s positive reputation and recommendations from both professionals and personal contacts. Teresinski said the link between advertising and influencing, when done organically, is the best way to get new products to consumers.

Audiences are more likely to use a product if they see an influencer that they trust “standing behind it” in a video that feels more natural and less like actors in a commercial, Teresinski said.

For Basnight, whose work has been featured on HGTV’s Battle on the Beach, NBC’s Making It and in publications like Better Homes and Gardens and Country Living, authenticity is paramount as a creator.

“I’ve had so much success because over the seven years…my followers know that I’m always going to be authentic,” she said. “I’m always going to be real with products. I don’t use stuff that I don’t like, and I don’t work with people unless I’ve tried their product first. And I’m always going to give 100 percent truth.”

Basnight does not consider herself a trend follower, but she notices how online trends tend to sway what people decide to put in their homes. In order to make DIY a sustainable hobby or career, Basnight said she encourages people to avoid letting trends dictate their style and, instead, “pick what you love”—even if it’s not trendy.

“I’ve been doing this for seven years, and trends go in and out,” she said. “But what I do [is] decorate my home how I want it so even when trends fade, I’m still happy with what I do.”