alta's Journey to Altaverse campaign used animated storytelling to drive online shopping in Georgia, bringing the retailer's website to life as a virtual world
ARCHIVEalta Builds a Virtual Shopping Universe With Journey to Altaverse
"Journey to Altaverse" is a 2023 digital animation campaign created by Project Lab for alta, one of Georgia's largest electronics retailers, designed to stimulate online shopping by translating the brand's website categories, functions, and departments into vivid animated characters inhabiting a purpose-built virtual world.
alta operates as a major force in Georgia's electronics and technology retail sector. The campaign launched in October 2023, positioning the brand's e-commerce platform not as a transactional destination but as an explorable universe. Project Lab, the Tbilisi-based agency and production company behind the work, constructed what it called the Altaverse: an alternative digital realm populated by industrious robots selecting gadgets on shoppers' behalf and presided over by Joy, a mischievous and enthusiastic cowboy character whose energy anchors the narrative. Every department on the alta website finds its counterpart in this animated environment, making abstract retail services immediately tangible for a Georgian audience.
The campaign's central objective, as stated by Giorgi Lolua, Commercial Director at Project Lab, was direct: stimulate online shopping and increase orders. To achieve that, the creative team chose world-building over conventional product advertising. Rather than showcasing individual gadgets or promotional pricing, the campaign invites viewers into the Altaverse itself, embedding the logic of the alta platform inside a story. In Georgia's increasingly competitive electronics market, where digital engagement has become a primary battleground for retail services brands, that narrative choice carries strategic weight. "Journey to Altaverse" was published as a single animated video asset, distributed through digital channels, reflecting the campaign's exclusive focus on online shopping behaviour. Clapboard rates the campaign 61 out of 100.
alta faces a structurally competitive electronics landscape in Georgia. According to Finspot Ge, alta led rival Zoommer in revenue by 34% in 2019, but Zoommer had become the market leader by 2023. According to Bm Ge, Zoommer's turnover exceeded GEL 500 million in 2023, with its managing director claiming approximately 45% market share in the digital-equipment-store segment. Against that backdrop, alta's decision to invest in brand-building animation for its online shopping platform reflects a recognition that transactional advertising alone is insufficient to reclaim competitive ground.
A 2023 electronics-sector overview cited by finspot.ge estimated alta's market share at 10%, placing competitors including EE at 7% and Zoommer at 6% in a fragmented multi-player field. Within that environment, the strategic rationale for "Journey to Altaverse" is clear: rather than competing on price visibility or product breadth, alta chose to compete on emotional distinctiveness and platform familiarity. By animating the alta website's own architecture — its categories, functions, and retail services — as characters and departments inside the Altaverse, Project Lab made the digital shopping experience legible and appealing to consumers who might otherwise default to a rival's storefront.
The campaign also extends a creative lineage Project Lab established for alta in August 2022, when the agency produced "Future Gadgets for Smart Generation," a campaign that similarly positioned technology through a virtual digital world and a distinctive guide character, according to Marketer Ge. That precedent demonstrates a deliberate strategic platform: alta consistently uses animated world-building to differentiate its online shopping proposition in the Georgian market, building cumulative brand recognition rather than one-off promotional noise.
Project Lab produced "Journey to Altaverse" as a fully animated video, constructing every visual element from within a coherent fictional universe rather than adapting live-action footage or product imagery. The creative approach centres on a principle of direct translation: every functional element of the alta website — product categories, navigation departments, retail services, and platform features — receives a character or environmental equivalent inside the Altaverse. This transforms a conventionally abstract digital interface into a world viewers can follow and understand through story.
The character Joy is the campaign's most distinct creative decision. Giorgi Lolua, Commercial Director at Project Lab, described Joy as a mischievous cowboy whose element of enthusiasm never fails. Placing a cowboy archetype inside a technology retail narrative is a deliberate tonal mismatch, and that friction generates the campaign's energy. Joy moves through a world of busy robots — automated agents performing the selection and curation tasks that the alta platform performs for shoppers — making the brand's value proposition feel active and agentive rather than passive. The robots themselves function as a visual metaphor for algorithmic assistance, giving abstract retail services a physical and animated form that non-technical audiences can immediately read.
The campaign was produced entirely by Project Lab in Tbilisi, continuing the agency's established relationship with alta in animation-led digital work. According to marketer.ge, the August 2022 predecessor campaign for alta was co-produced with CG studio Garnamatac. Full production credits specifically for "Journey to Altaverse" beyond Giorgi Lolua's role as Commercial Director are not publicly documented. The animated format, distributed as a single digital asset, was chosen to align directly with the campaign's objective of driving online shopping behaviour within the Georgian electronics market.
ARCHIVENo independently verified performance data for "Journey to Altaverse" — including conversion rates, order volume uplift, or paid media reach figures — is publicly available at the time of publication. The campaign asset recorded 725 views and 5 likes on the platform where it was submitted, according to clapboard.com, which provides a directional signal about organic reach but does not constitute a business result.
Structurally, the campaign exhibits several features associated with effective brand-building in digital retail contexts. The decision to animate the alta website's own architecture as characters solves a genuine consumer problem: e-commerce platforms in the electronics and technology category are functionally complex, and reducing that complexity through narrative lowers the perceived barrier to online shopping. Joy's character role as an enthusiastic guide addresses the need for a human-feeling entry point into an otherwise automated retail services environment.
The campaign's limitation, and a likely factor in its Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100, is its reach constraint. A single animated video asset, distributed digitally in the Georgian market without documented paid amplification, caps the audience that world-building of this ambition can actually reach. The Altaverse concept has sufficient creative depth to sustain a broader campaign ecosystem — serialised content, interactive formats, or social extensions — but as a single asset, the investment in world-building is not fully leveraged. For a brand seeking to recover competitive ground against market leaders in Georgia's electronics sector, that gap between creative ambition and distribution scale is the central structural challenge the campaign leaves unresolved.
"Journey to Altaverse" is a 2023 animated digital campaign created by Project Lab for alta, a major electronics retailer in Georgia. It builds a virtual world called the Altaverse, populated by robots and cowboy character Joy, to make alta's online shopping platform engaging and increase e-commerce orders. The campaign launched in October 2023.
Project Lab, a Tbilisi-based agency and production company, created "Journey to Altaverse" for alta. Giorgi Lolua, Commercial Director at Project Lab, is the named figure behind the campaign's submission and creative direction. The campaign was produced and published in Georgia in October 2023 as a single animated digital video asset.
The Altaverse is an animated virtual world built by Project Lab to represent alta's electronics website. Website categories, departments, and retail services appear as characters and environments. Joy is the campaign's mischievous cowboy protagonist whose enthusiasm guides viewers through the Altaverse, making alta's digital shopping experience feel accessible and story-driven.
alta operates in a competitive Georgian electronics market. According to finspot.ge, alta held an estimated 10% market share in 2023, behind rival Zoommer. The Altaverse campaign focuses on brand distinctiveness and platform familiarity rather than price promotion, a strategic choice designed to strengthen alta's online shopping proposition against well-capitalised Georgian competitors.
Clapboard rates "Journey to Altaverse" 61 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's creative ambition in world-building and character design while noting the structural limitation of a single animated video asset, which constrains the reach of a concept rich enough to support a broader digital campaign ecosystem across the Georgian market.
Yes. Project Lab built a preceding campaign for alta in August 2022 titled "Future Gadgets for Smart Generation," which also used a virtual digital world and a guide character to position the brand's technology offer, according to marketer.ge. "Journey to Altaverse" continues that strategic approach, establishing animated world-building as alta's recurring creative platform in Georgia.
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