Grand Theft Auto VI is just around the corner, and if you’ve been patiently (and frustratingly) loyal through the 13 years since GTA V, you’ve probably been counting down to the 19 November release date.
You might be sitting there wondering, what does the release of a video game have to do with marketing? Well, the release, the anticipation and the cultural hype of the game have EVERYTHING to do with marketing.
At Blaze, we have to give a round of applause to a good marketing strategy when we see it, and after watching the hype for GTA 6 grow over the last 13 years, we’ve picked up a lot of marketing lessons that Rockstar Games has given, and you should all be paying attention to, no matter what your business is.
Keep reading to find out what you can learn from GTA 6’s marketing strategy and how you can apply these lessons to your business.
Lesson 1: Say Less, for Longer
Many businesses miss the value of scarcity marketing. Years after the release of the last Grand Theft Auto game, Rockstar casually remarked that another would be coming, but this was followed by over a decade of almost 0 updates, other than the odd reminder that it’d be dropping – one day.
There’s keeping your cards close to your chest, but Rockstar seemed to have put theirs firmly in an attic drawer. But their silence did more than any frequent update ever could; it created the perfect mix of speculation and frustration that kept GTA 6 a topic for over a decade, with no content to prompt it.
Turning Silence Into a Running Joke
In fact, it became a running meme referenced by people who didn’t even play the game; when anything big happened in the world, the running joke was, ‘I can’t believe we got this before GTA 6’.
Developers gave us nothing for years, not even a screenshot of the gameplay, yet people still kept talking. So next time you’re scheduling your 10th teaser for a product or service update, ask yourself whether you’re building hype or diluting it.
Lesson 2: Make the Drop the Event
If there’s one thing every business should learn from Rockstar’s marketing strategy, it’s to make the drop the event, not the marketing that builds up to it.
The Trailer 2 Surprise
Trailer 2 for the game is a perfect example. There was no countdown, no “something big is coming Thursday” and no teaser for the teaser. It just appeared on 6 May 2025, four days after Rockstar announced the game had been delayed from autumn 2025 to 26 May 2026. A later delay, to 19 November 2026, was announced in November 2025.
Most brands would have kept their heads down after news like that and let it blow over. Rockstar did the opposite. Within days, the conversation went from ‘it’s been delayed again’ to ‘have you seen the new trailer?’ According to Rockstar, it pulled in 475 million views across platforms in its first 24 hours, beating the 365 million that Deadpool & Wolverine set as the record.
Turning Bad News Into Hype
There are two lessons here. First, surprise is a tactic in its own right: when people don’t know a release is coming, the release itself becomes the news. Second, how you follow bad news matters just as much as the bad news itself. Rockstar didn’t write a long apology. It gave people something better to talk about.
So the next time you’ve got a delay, a price change or a launch that didn’t land, don’t stop at the holding statement. Ask yourself what you could put out next that changes the conversation.
Being able to reframe your marketing strategy like this is a skill in itself and one that can take years to master, which is why we will always recommend working with a marketing agency that can help you put a plan together and get your marketing strategy just right.
Lesson 3: Borrow Someone Else’s Stage
One of the smartest and most effective elements of the GTA 6 marketing strategy was premiering Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look on Netflix before Rockstar put it on their own website and YouTube channel.
Why Netflix Was the Smart Move
When the older games came out in the early 2000s to 2010s, you’d see endless TV adverts, but times have changed, and so has where GTA’s audiences are. The 26-minute Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look was the first-ever game trailer to premiere on Netflix, pulled in 31.1 million views in four days, and topped Netflix’s weekly English-language film chart before being released on other platforms.
The same people who played the game as children and teenagers are now fully fledged adults, so premiering on Netflix was one of the smartest moves Rockstar has made in its marketing strategy.
Share a Bigger Platform
For businesses, the takeaway is that you don’t need to own the biggest platform to reach the biggest audience. Partnering with a brand, publication or creator your customers already trust lets you borrow their reach and their credibility at the same time. It also pays to market to who your audience is now, not who they were when you started. Rockstar’s fans grew up, so Rockstar went to where grown-ups spend their evenings.
So before your next launch, ask yourself where your customers are already paying attention and whose stage you could share, rather than defaulting to your own channels and hoping people find you.
Lesson 4: Earn Your Place in the Culture
Earned media is priceless to a business and is essential for building trust between you and your consumers. Over the last 3 decades, GTA has managed to fully ingrain itself into everyday culture, with everyone knowing what it is and its position as a powerhouse game.
The South Park Collaboration
Beyond mainstream recognition, Rockstar has also identified and appealed to its biggest user base, and its recent collaboration with South Park is a perfect example of not only identifying its audience, but earning and emphasising its place in the culture.
There’s considerable overlap between GTA and South Park fans. In recent episodes, fans got a glimpse of previously unseen gameplay. In a perfect example of understanding the culture, the only feature revealed was ‘dog poop fights’ – a perfect fit for the South Park audience.
Rockstar didn’t officially announce a financial or paid contract for the placement, continuing its history of unconventional marketing stunts that fans love and that have since been reshared countless times, with fans sharing their reaction to the surprise reveal and their excitement for the release.
Marketing That Doesn’t Feel Like Marketing
What businesses should be taking from this strategy is that the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing. Rockstar’s appearance in the South Park episode felt completely natural and led to ongoing user-generated content and built hype. A good product speaks for itself and gets everyone else talking, and that’s exactly what you should be trying to achieve with your own business.
Tapping Into Nostalgia With the Radio Stations
Rockstar also knows exactly what its fans want to hear, quite literally. In October, it revealed the game’s radio stations and the DJs hosting them, with Bad Bunny, Lana Del Rey, Morgan Wallen, Burna Boy, and Trick Daddy and Trina all behind the mic, as well as the return of Flash FM, a station long-time players will remember from Vice City.
This is where most of GTA 6’s nostalgia marketing comes from. The radio has always been one of the most-loved parts of the series, and for anyone who spent hours playing the earlier games, certain songs are still tied to memories of cruising around Vice City, San Andreas or Los Santos.
Hear one of those songs today, and they’re straight back in the game – trust us, even in the Blaze office, when a certain song plays, you’re bound to hear ‘this was in GTA’. Rockstar knew the soundtrack was what fans wanted to know more about, so it gave them exactly that, and the reveal had people talking about the game, and their own memories of it, all over again.
For businesses, the lesson is to know which part of your brand your customers feel most connected to, and lean into it. If there’s something people already associate with you, whether that’s a product, a campaign or even a jingle, bringing it back or building on it can do far more than a brand-new message ever could.
Lesson 5: Go Where the Attention Actually Is
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, Rockstar is the master of guerrilla marketing. Rockstar Games has embraced a lack of traditional advertising and has had so much fun with how it markets the game that it’s nearly impossible not to get caught up in the excitement.
Takeovers, Murals and Stadium Placements
Over the last year, the creative approach to marketing has been outstanding, with stunts such as the Miami and Vice City Takeovers. As well as amazing, multi-story, outdoor murals and iconic high-impact digital placements. One of the biggest product placements was at Hard Rock Stadium. It’s been hard to escape any mention of the game, and that’s exactly what Rockstar wanted.
Social Media and Streamers
Rockstar has been collaborating with streamers to generate plenty of social media coverage. It’s been nearly impossible to doomscroll on any platform without running into something about the game, whether it’s analysis of the footage or fans talking about their expectations. GTA fans aren’t glued to the TV like they were in the 2000s; they’re glued to their phone and are scrolling through social media platforms, which is the perfect example of smart marketing.
The lesson is to follow your audience’s habits and grow your strategy with it, and that might mean completely changing your marketing strategy as you know it.
Lesson 6: Let Your Fans Do the Work
What every business should learn to master is letting your fans/audience do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to marketing.
Give Your Audience Just Enough to Start a Wave
It can be easy to get excited and feel like you have to hand over every detail about an upcoming product launch or business update to your customers, and yes, it’s true that you should be sharing updates every now and then to remind your customers that you exist, but often teasing is more effective, and that’s exactly what Rockstar Games did.
For years, Rockstar gave us nothing more than little hints and then let the audience do all the talking. One mention of a female protagonist led to years of plot speculation and curiosity, which only left the audience craving more – which is exactly what businesses should be learning from.
Make Something Worth Sharing
The best marketing assets aren’t the ones that you constantly reshare across platforms; it’s the content that your followers engage with, share and actually want to talk about. Say you’re a business with a new product launching. If it’s something that actually excites your audience, you shouldn’t have to keep resharing it in the hope that someone will bite; you need to market it cleverly so interest is piqued and people start engaging with it organically.
With the right angle, even the most unexciting product can spark curiosity. To detour a bit from GTA 6 marketing, one of the best marketing campaigns (and a Blaze favourite) is Liquid Death, which took something as boring as water and, with great branding and an even better marketing strategy, made it something the world was talking about.
What This Means if You’re Not Rockstar
You might be sitting there thinking, ‘I don’t have anywhere near the budget that Rockstar has; I’ll never be able to get the attention they do’. Let’s get two things straight. One, you don’t need a huge budget to market your business successfully; two, only you can limit your business’s success, and if you believe you won’t achieve global success and carry that energy through your marketing, you never will.
Sure, you’re probably not going to land a Netflix deal, but all the principles you have learned through this blog can scale and can work for your business. Instead of Miami Heat, try to land a local partnership; instead of getting an episode of South Park, make sure you’re engaging in your area and injecting yourself into local conversations.
You are the master of your own success, and with the right attitude and marketing team on your side, the possibilities are endless.
Get Your Marketing Strategy Right With Blaze Media
If this blog has fired you up and you want to take a new, exciting approach to how you market your business, you’re in the right place. At Blaze, we have helped businesses build a new, exciting brand and get it out there with our web design, social media, PPC, and SEO services.
Looking for a marketing agency to take your business to the next level? Get in touch and find out how we can help.
