Together with Mullen, rail transportation company CSX is continuing the Claus Conspiracy campaign it launched last holiday season. The campaign features faux-conspiracy theorist Craig Waarheid whose sole mission in life is to convince the public that Santa Claus has a deal with CSX to help deliver Christmas presents.
As the story goes, Waarheid is a previous employee of CSX and when rifling through some of his old pictures from his CSX days, he began to find clues pointing to a relationship between CSX and Santa Claus. The clues come in the form of pictures posted on his Facebook and Twitter pages as well as a dedicated Claus Conspiracy website.
Post by Claus Conspiracy.
My TV show trailer is here! Help me get picked up by watching and sharing: http://t.co/cERULxMPTa #ClausConspiracy pic.twitter.com/ACfKahNuqh — Craig N Waarheid (@ClausConspiracy) December 8, 2014
Waarheid has released an “Intrigue TV” trailer for an upcoming reality series that will focus on digging into the conspiracy theory which Waarheid prefers to call a “conspiracy fact.”
CSX itself is playing along but “declining to comment on his [Waarheid’s] assertions about our partnership with Santa Claus” on its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
At this time, CSX employees have been told to take Craig’s information with a grain of salt. http://t.co/XRDy9hrZ7N pic.twitter.com/E73r0HYdzu — CSX (@CSX) December 4, 2014
In this Instagram post CSX responds to a lightwave analysis Waarheid performed on the train company’s colors saying, “Craig’s finding about our company colors is a mere coincidence.”
Last year, Waarheid caught images of Santa prancing about alongside s stretch of CSX track. He also captured the sound of a passing train and put it through a sound analyzer for even more hints as to Santa’s relationship with CSX.
In a very faux officious sounding statement, CSX notes it has its own investigative team looking into the situation.
We are closely monitoring Craig’s Facebook and Twitter as well as www.clausconspiracy.com and have an investigative team looking into various pieces of evidence shared on his website. We realize Craig is encouraging the public to follow his findings on www.clausconspiracy.com and email him with new tips. CSX recommends that the public learn more by viewing the trailer for Craig’s reality show. The trailer provides a glimpse into Craig’s conspiratorial world and his home that doubles as a Claus-tracking command center.
As holiday spoofs go, this one’s quite elaborate and well thought out. Though, sadly, it isn’t catching fire as much as I think it could. Perhaps the campaign should have included an element that urged people to find/create their own Santa/CSX sightings and post to social media with a hashtag.
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