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Beer 34 Statues Campaign Turned Beer Lovers Into Public Monuments
Beer 34's "Statues" campaign, created by Georgian agency Leavingstone for Natakhtari Brewery and launched in March 2015, erected genuine public statues in central Tbilisi to honour the first customers willing to pay an extreme premium price for Georgia's debut craft beer, making it the first brand in history to immortalise its own consumers in this way.
Natakhtari Brewery introduced Beer 34 as Georgia's first craft beer in 2015, according to reporting by Ads of the World. To generate immediate cultural impact, Leavingstone set the launch price at 34 Georgian lari per bottle — approximately seventeen US dollars and, as reported by Ads of the World, roughly twenty times the standard price of beer in Georgia at the time. The number thirty-four gave the brand both its name and its founding provocation. The campaign's mechanics were straightforward and deliberately theatrical: the first buyers willing to pay that extraordinary price were tracked, and within five days, as documented by Ads of the World and Branding News, personal statues of those buyers were commissioned, produced, and installed in a prominent central location in the city.
The objective was not simply to sell bottles. Leavingstone used the outdoor, OOH medium to transform a product launch into a civic event, positioning Beer 34 as a brand that genuinely celebrated its customers rather than its own heritage or brewing credentials. In a Georgian beer market dominated by a small number of large domestic producers, according to industry data cited by Matsne Gov Ge, the campaign needed to create rapid distinction and word-of-mouth velocity for an entirely new category entrant. Erecting real statues of real people in a real public square accomplished exactly that, turning an OOH outdoor execution into a national conversation and earning Beer 34 a Clapboard Score of 79 out of 100.
Georgia's beer market in 2015 was heavily consolidated around domestic production. Domestic beer represented ninety-seven percent of Georgia's beer market, while imported beer accounted for approximately three percent, according to matsne.gov.ge. Four main companies controlled eighty-nine percent of the beer market in Georgia, according to later industry reporting also cited by matsne.gov.ge. Into this landscape, Natakhtari Brewery was attempting to introduce an entirely new subcategory — craft beer — where, as matsne.gov.ge notes, craft accounted for well under ten percent of alcoholic beverages in the country.
Leavingstone's strategic insight was that a craft beer launch in Georgia could not succeed on product messaging alone. Established competitors with deep distribution and strong brand recognition — including Natakhtari's own mainstream portfolio alongside rivals such as Kazbegi, one of Georgia's most recognised beer brands — occupied every conventional channel. Strategy director Giorgi Burchuladze and the Leavingstone team, as credited by Ads of the World and adceurope.org, identified that the extreme price point itself could function as the campaign's primary creative asset rather than a barrier to overcome. By setting the launch price at thirty-four Georgian lari, the brand guaranteed that anyone who paid it was, by definition, a committed beer enthusiast worthy of public recognition. The price was not a commercial strategy in isolation; it was a mechanism for identifying and celebrating a specific type of consumer, then using outdoor and OOH advertising in its most literal form — a physical object installed in public space — to amplify that recognition across the entire Georgian market.
Film director Guka Goliadze led the documentary capture of the "Statues" campaign, working alongside directors of photography Temo Matcharadze and Misha Gogichashvili, as credited by Ads of the World and adceurope.org. Creative directors Levan Lepsveridze and Giorgi Avaliani oversaw the concept, with art direction by Ia Darakhvelidze and copywriting by Dito Dolidze and Beka Raminishvili. Executive producer Natia Gogia managed production, and CGI and graphic work was handled by Giorgi Qobalia, according to the same sources. Account management was led by Nikoloz Kakhniashvili.
The creative execution operated across two registers simultaneously. The primary outdoor and OOH element was the statues themselves — physical, three-dimensional works installed in a central location in Tbilisi, honouring individuals who had done nothing more historically significant than purchase a beer at an extreme price. The deliberate absurdity of that premise was the campaign's emotional engine. Statues in Georgian public space, as in most cultures, commemorate soldiers, poets, and political figures. Beer 34 subverted that convention entirely, and the contrast between the solemnity of the monument form and the cheerful ordinariness of the honourees generated the cultural tension that drove media coverage and social sharing.
The film component documented the reactions of both the statue subjects and the Georgian public encountering the installations, giving the OOH outdoor element a second life as video content distributed beyond the physical geography of Tbilisi. This layered approach — a single idea expressed first as a real object in public space, then as a filmed record of its human impact — gave the campaign a structural elegance that the awards circuit recognised consistently across 2015.
Beer 34's "Statues" campaign delivered measurable commercial and cultural results in Georgia. According to Ads of the World, two hundred and thirty bottles were sold in the initial phase of the launch, producing two hundred and thirty percent of planned first-month sales and a twelve percent market share within one month — an extraordinary result for a brand entering an entirely new category in a highly consolidated market.
The awards record for "Statues" is equally documented. The campaign won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2015 in the PR category under Launch and Relaunch, as reported by Ads of the World, adceurope.org, LinkedIn, and branding.news. According to those same sources, this was the first Cannes Lion ever won by a Georgian company, giving the campaign significance that extended well beyond Beer 34 or Natakhtari Brewery into the wider history of Georgian advertising. Leavingstone also received an ADCE Nomination at the Art Directors Club of Europe 2015 in Promotions and New Media Promotions, per adceurope.org. At the Golden Hammer awards in 2015, the campaign won Gold in both Promo Campaign and Communication Idea in Industry, according to adceurope.org. It further won Silver at Ad Black Sea 2015 for Best Video Content and Other Branded Content, per the same source.
No additional verified performance data beyond these documented figures is publicly available for the campaign's longer-term commercial trajectory. The structural effectiveness of the campaign — a self-funding stunt in which the premium price covered production costs while simultaneously generating the honourees for the outdoor installation — represents a model of creative efficiency that the awards recognition reflects accurately. Beer 34's "Statues" holds a Clapboard Score of 79 out of 100.
Beer 34's "Statues" campaign launched in Georgia in March 2015, created by Leavingstone for Natakhtari Brewery. It erected genuine public statues in Tbilisi honouring the first customers who paid an extreme launch price of thirty-four Georgian lari per bottle — roughly twenty times the normal price — for Georgia's first craft beer, according to Ads of the World.
Beer 34's "Statues" campaign won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2015 in the PR Launch and Relaunch category, as reported by Ads of the World and adceurope.org. According to those sources, this was the first Cannes Lion ever won by a Georgian company, making the result historically significant for Georgia's advertising industry beyond the brand itself.
Leavingstone, a Georgian advertising agency, created the "Statues" campaign for Natakhtari Brewery's Beer 34 brand. Creative directors Levan Lepsveridze and Giorgi Avaliani led the concept, with strategy by Giorgi Burchuladze and film direction by Guka Goliadze, as credited by Ads of the World and adceurope.org. The campaign launched in March 2015.
Beer 34 used OOH outdoor advertising in its most literal form: physical statues installed in a central Tbilisi location, honouring real customers. The outdoor installation was then documented on film, extending the campaign beyond its geographic footprint. This two-stage execution gave a single creative idea both civic presence and shareable video content simultaneously.
Beer 34 sold two hundred and thirty bottles in the campaign's initial phase, generating two hundred and thirty percent of planned first-month sales and twelve percent market share within one month in Georgia, according to Ads of the World. These figures represented a significant commercial outcome for a first-time craft beer entrant in a highly consolidated domestic market.
Beer 34 launched at thirty-four Georgian lari per bottle, approximately seventeen US dollars, which was roughly twenty times the normal price of beer in Georgia, as reported by Ads of the World and branding.news. The price was both the brand's name and its campaign mechanism, designed to identify and publicly honour genuinely committed beer enthusiasts.
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