As the go-to beer for college students, Natural Light has built equity with its fans through tentpole programs that support the real-world problems they face. No problem is bigger for this group than student debt, so, since 2018, Natty has provided $1M per year in direct payments to college graduates saddled with debt. In 2021, the brand sought to bring back this program in a way that would help shine a brighter light on the issue itself.

Inspired by the fact that a college diploma represents both the good memories and, at the same time, the exorbitant price of a college education, Natty Light set out to use the diploma as a symbol of the staggering debt crisis in America. Natty Light took 2,600 real college diplomas, sourced from students across the country (who received a fee for use), and turned it into a 46-foot tall art installation called the Da Vinci of Debt. Collectively, the diplomas, valued at $180,000 apiece (the average cost of a four-year degree), were worth over $470 million, making Da Vinci of Debt the most expensive piece of art in the world, besting Da Vinci’s Salvatore Mundi, which sold for $450 million in 2017.

The piece, built in New York’s Grand Central Station, communicated the scale of the college debt crisis, while also alluding to the feelings of chaos, anxiety, and lack of control that those burdened with debt struggle with every day. Media of all kinds covered the story, with hundreds of students, influencers, and passerbys coming to see it either live or through the interactive web experience. In just three weeks, there were over 770 pieces of earned media, totaling over 1.2 billion earned impressions, with 30,000 people visiting our college debt web page during launch week alone.