Digital Strategy & Content Producer | Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a theatrical dark comedy, weaving together dance and klezmer music with a strong narrative tale. The show starred Canadian genre-bending sensation Ben Caplan, on the back of his European album tour and is inspired by the true stories of two Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908. The company has a moderate following in Canada, as well as Ben Caplan having a dedicated base of core fans in the States and Canada. However, the company was unknown to UK audiences and Ben Caplan had a limited fan base outside of London. Therefore, the challenge was in selling a show, which had previously been promoted with him as the main selling point. Additionally, the raw footage and images we were provided with were very limited and not suited to UK theatre audiences. We worked around this by creating new footage in the short time we had with the company and taking advantage of UK audience reactions on the first night to promote the rest of the tour. Additionally, the marketing campaign included paid and organic promotion to Jewish groups, who the music would appeal to. Furthermore, we marketed the show as highly relevant to our times, with the current refugee crisis and mass displacement.