When the Belgian government reduced its culture budget, ‘Theater at the Stream’ (TAS), a popular theatre company in Belgium, lost a third of their government grants, together with a host of other theatre companies.

Depending for a very large part on these grants, the TAS had to find a new way to

- generate extra income to be able to continue its work, as not finding any funds would mean the end of the TAS.

- get this government grants issue back on the political agenda

As theatre is all about being creative, we wanted to use a creative approach.

We decided to break new ground, and introduced a commercial break in one of their theatre pieces, where actors from the TAS acted out live theatre versions of well-known Belgian TV-commercials on stage.

The TAS did get its extra income, as advertisers paid for their commercials.

The campaign created massive PR in Belgian media, with a total of over € 1.323.000 of earned media.

And most importantly: thanks to our campaign the government re-examined their culture budget, and gave the TAS their grants and their future back.

Make sure the TAS could get extra funds, so they could continue as a theatre company.

Get the issue of subsidization back on the political agenda, to try and get a structural solution that could guarantee the future of the TAS, and other theatre companies.

With one commercial break, Theater at the Stream won 25% of their lost funds back.

Not only did advertisers get an unexpected medium to get their story told, but Theater at the Stream itself got a chance to get their story told, resulting in more than 1,5 million in earned media. (quite a lot for a country with 10 million inhabitants.)

As a result, the discussion about public funding was reopened, both on social media ànd by politicians.

And most importantly: thanks to our campaign the government re-examined their culture budget, and gave the TAS their grants and their future back.

Or how a well thought-off campaign can save a theatre company from bankruptcy.

With an online film, we reached out to Belgian advertisers and presented them with the idea to act out a live theatre version of one of their TV-commercials, and in doing so reaching an audience in a completely new way.

Lots of Belgium’s biggest advertisers were interested, and we selected 7 of them, including 4 clients from other agencies:

A bank.

A public transport company.

An energy provider.

A tour operator.

A water brand.

A cookie brand.

And a car brand.

On March 6th, during one of their performances, the actors from the TAS played their TV commercials for a live audience, all paid by the advertisers.

When the Belgian government reduced its culture budget, ‘Theater at the Stream’ (TAS), a popular theatre company in Belgium, lost a third of their government grants, together with a host of other theatre companies.

Depending for a very large part on these grants, the TAS had to find a new way to

- generate extra income to be able to continue its work, as not finding any funds would mean the end of the TAS.

- get this government grants issue back on the political agenda

As theatre is all about being creative with little means, we wanted to use a creative approach.

We decided to break new ground, and introduced a commercial break in one of their theatre pieces. Not just any old commercial break: we had actors from the TAS act out live theatre versions of well-known Belgian TV-commercials on stage.

Advertisers involved could reach an audience in a completely new way, and became part of a positive PR-story.