Salisbury — Riverview native and train aficionado Darren Gordon, who filmed a video YouTube hailed an “EPIC CATCH!!!!” has disclosed this morning that the entire thing was an elaborate marketing ploy for Irving Oil.
An overnight millionaire, Gordon said that though his advertising career has been in the works for a long time now, he wasn’t aware the video would be such a sensation. “Some people are saying I’m basically New Brunswick’s Don Draper, but I try to steer clear of those types of labels,” he politely mused, sipping a dirty martini in the Salisbury Big Stop.
“I was snowed in one day after a storm, and like usual was playing with my train set in the basement,” he explained modestly. “I got the idea after I made one of my model trains plunge through a snow-drift I made out of cotton balls.”
Gordon approached Irving Oil executives last week, offering to film the stunt in an unprecedented ad campaign. The struggling small-time oil company agreed despite having never seen Gordon’s video skills and never having heard of him. “He broke through our security guards just to get a chance to talk to us about this thing — we figured he must know what he’s doing,” said one unnamed executive. “Apparently when it comes to trains, he just goes crazy!”
The video, filmed in Salisbury, depicts a CN Rail engine loaded with tonnes of pure Irving oil barrelling through massive amounts of snow that had accumulated on the tracks after 3 major winter storms. The video now has more than 6 million YouTube hits.
Celebrated as a marketing genius, Gordon’s now being recruited by big-name New Brunswick companies such as Mama’s Pub in Fredericton, Princess Auto in Moncton and Pain & Pleasures Tattoos in Saint John. “He’s your guy if you want to get your establishment on the map,” beamed Mama’s Pub owner Gill Frampton, already confident that burger and beer sales will soon be skyrocketing.
Some commenters on YouTube have questioned whether Gordon willingly put himself in danger by filming so close to the gargantuan locomotive. “This guy’s an ad shark,” one New Brunswick user wrote in Gordon’s defence. “Danger’s his middle name.”
Gordon is currently in talks to film Snowpiercer 2, the sequel to the dystopian film starring Chris Evans that was released last year.