GTA 6 Ad Campaign-Kai Russell

Ad/Trailer for GTA 6:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQRLujxTm3c

Kai Russell

GTA 6 Ad Campaign

 One of the most anticipated releases in all of gaming, GTA 6 is now finally going to be released. With the Rockstar Games developer releasing GTA 5 in 2013, which is over 12 years ago, they are now finally building up the suspense for GTA 6. They are slowly starting to release new trailers/ads and snippets of the new game, GTA 6. They just announced the new date of release in this ad because they originally delayed the release of GTA 6 and didn't give any other date when they said they were going to delay the release of the game. Rockstar Games is a major developer, but this game is by far the most exciting and highly anticipated game in recent years. Everyone loved GTA 5 and is constantly being played today. People have been dying for a new one to release, and it's not finally happening. The game's release date is May 26th, 2026. People already have it marked on their calendars, trying to be the first one to be in the game.

    In the ad campaign I put above, the entire ad is based on a character named Jason Duval. This ad is a storytelling type of ad. It gives us a day-to-day on this character, Jason Duval, and we get to experience his life in gameplay style. The game is set where characters live in a city called 'Vice City', but really, the map is based on the city of Miami. The ad shows how crazy a life Jason lives by having a girlfriend and committing serious crimes, while being chased by the police. At about 1:08 seconds of the ad, a song called "Hot Together" by The Pointer Sisters begins to play. This is when the ad starts to pick up in pace by Jason living his crazy life, committing crimes, and showing off what you are capable of doing in the game. This game is brand new and will have brand new characters. Any other iconic characters are not seen in this ad, while Jason Duval is the main character in this ad.

    This ad is 2 minutes and 46 seconds long and was released by Rockstar Games. The way Rockstar Games promotes their games and will do the same for GTA 6 is by dropping big trailers every so often. This allows them to save money from constantly having to make new ads and create new ideas. Dropping big trailers/ads on GTA 6 allows more build-up and hype around the game because more and more people look forward to the next trailer to see what else they can find out about the game. This ad was published online by Rockstar Games on May 6th, 2025, and as of today, it has over 135 million views just on YouTube. With how big GTA's following is, they don't need a ton of advertising or have to pay for promotions. Most ad views come from people following Rockstar Games or subscribed to them on different platforms. 

Article on GTA 6 ad:    https://www.gamesradar.com/gta-6-guide/

    This is an article that talks about everything you need to know about GTA 6 and all the ads that release it. One of the things they talk about in the article is, " That even Take-Two's CEO has found the GTA 6 hype pretty astonishing. (Loveridge 1)" Take-Two is the head of the table that owns Rockstar Games. They aren't the ones to develop the games, but they own the company that does. So, for them to give praise for what GTA 6's ad has done for hype and build-up is already a testimony to how well the ad is doing for them. Another thing that caught my eye in the article was about pricing for the game. The ad didn't show a price, but this is what the article had to say about it: "There's been a lot of speculation surrounding GTA 6's price tag. While Take-Two Interactive or Rockstar have yet to confirm how much GTA 6 will cost, market analysts have already started pointing towards a pretty hefty $100 price point in light of some colossal development cost estimates." This is interesting to me because this would be one of the most expensive games of all time to be released if it started at a retail price of $100. This will be interesting to see how price may play an impact on whether or not people buy a game for that high of a starting price. One last thing the article talked about was the main characters in the ad. In the article, it states, "As they take on life together in the city, they'll have to rely on one another more than ever. The pair certainly appear to share a bond, or a kind of Bonnie and Clyde-like relationship, and speak of trust as they get stuck into some crime together. (Loveridge 1)" This text is specifically talking about Jason Duval and his girlfriend from the ad. The article gives us more context, basically saying how it's a story of how their relationship relies on each other and how they have to handle things, committing crimes together. This ad allows us to see visuals of what it will look like when you play the game, and they use these characters by creating a story to show us more of what we can do in the game.

    One of the persuasive techniques GTA 6's ad uses is cinematic presentation. They purposely make their films as high-quality as they can because, as I mentioned before, they don't mass-produce different ads but try to make fewer but more impactful ones. So in this ad, they made it feel more like you were watching a trailer for a movie, which will lead their audience to think that their game is higher quality based on what they are seeing. Another persuasive technique they used was relationship storytelling. They used their main character, Jason Duval, and his girlfriend to basically show what their game is about while still providing a story-like ad based on their crime-committing lifestyle. This technique allows consumers to see both gameplay but also the storytelling side of the game, with a relationship aspect of it. GTA 6 ad uses its platform very effectively by the use of storytelling and promotion. With how well this ad was made, it allows consumers watching to really appreciate how good quality the producers made it. The promotion didn't take a lot from Rockstar Games, but was still able to reach millions by having a loyal and supportive fan base. With how long GTA has been out for, this is by far their biggest ad and best production. The use of storytelling in the ad is what makes this ad really effective. It allows consumers to build a connection with the game to understand the relationship between Jason and his girlfriend go through and not just see it from a gameplay standpoint.

    This ad is different from others in the way it is produced. No other ads that are made by video game companies are making their ads long and high quality. As mentioned before, Rockstar Games strives to make their work as good as they can. That is one of the reasons why they delayed the game in the first place, because they felt like they needed more time to release the best version of the game. This shows in their ad that they gave us because of the movie aspect feeling that you get. You get to enjoy this ad in two different ways, one as a movie, watching the couple take on their challenges, and one by trying to learn what gameplay you're gonna see. The theme of this game hasn't changed, as it's always been a crime committed focused game to get money and live a luxurious life. But one thing that is new that this ad brought in is the first female main character. There has not been a female character who has played a big enough role to be called the main character. In the ad, you can see Jason and his girlfriend take on challenges together, making them both important aspects of the ad and game. This ad's target audience is people ages 16-35, good source of income, males, loyal GTA gamers, and any content creators. With how long GTA has been around, the ages 16-35 fit best because those people grew up on the game, but also the ad is more 'adult' like and is meant for people who are mature enough for some of the explicit things shown. The one stereotype that this ad shows is how a typical "Florida man" acts. They make the main character, Jason, fight everyone, act crazy, and just be rude. This is a play on what some people naturally assume "Florida men" act like. Although no one will care about this stereotype and buy the game, I think it's important to at least recognize the fact that they did this just for the game because of the setting being based in Miami, Florida.

    One of the ad's strengths was the overall gameplay it provided. It showed enough of what you are going to get out of the game and some of the map you are going to see. I feel like, for this being their second ad for the upcoming game, it showed enough for the audience to build even more excitement for the next ad to release, to hopefully see even more. One of the gameplay styles you can see from the ad was when there was a boat chase happening, and gunshots were flying everywhere as one of the characters was trying to escape. Another strength this ad shows is storytelling. You get a great inside scoop of both characters' relationships and the wild lifestyle they live in a short period of time. In the ad, it shows how they meet in prison, then begin to go through luxury lifestyles like going on. a yacht, then finally finishing off by doing a crazy heist while escaping the police. You get to see a full action-packed story of a couple in just 90 seconds in this ad. For weaknesses, one that stood out was the rhythm of the ad. Although I said it showed great gameplay, the ad was all over the place, focusing on different things and having so many short clips of different settings. Once the music started playing in the ad, it started to go clip by clip every few seconds, and it was hard to fully understand at times what you're actually seeing. An example of this in the ad is that they go from the couple talking by the lake, then one second into the clip, it jumps right into people stealing things and leaving from a plane. They are not giving enough time for some clips to be fully understood because of how fast the clips go by in the ad. Another weakness that is relatively the same is that the storytelling was very complicated at times. I like the idea of showing the relationship and focusing on it, but at times, there are so many different things the ad is trying to show that it tends to overwhelm other scenes. At 1:39 of the ad is when the ad starts to get really complicated. I think it does a great job in showing gameplay of the robberies and cutscenes the game will have. But from an aspect of storytelling for the ad, it fails because the ad doesn't give us the purpose or much backstory of the multiple crimes they commit at the last minute. For example, the couple goes from dancing in a club at 1:41 and then instantly at 1:44 seconds, it's a clip of the couple jumping out of an apartment window from the second floor. I feel like, as the ad went on, Rockstar Games got away from using the aspect of storytelling in Jason Duval's (main character) life and started to show more exciting films of gameplay. I feel like if the ad stuck to more story telling it would've made this film a lot more memorable because you are learning more about a story versus just watching short 2-3 second clips of gameplay. The storytelling would've made a longer-lasting impact on people, but either way, GTA 6 is the most anticipated game to release in 2026. People will love any ad and be dying to wait for the next one to release just to watch it.

    I feel like this ad is perfect for their target audience because of how high-quality it is. People who tend to buy GTA are looking for both storyline and quality of gameplay. In the ad, they provided both by showing the life of the main character and gameplay scenes. This is targeted well for the ages 16-35 because the ad was the perfect amount of what GTA is, which is a high-action game with lots of freedom to commit crazy heists. Those ages are what people grew up on playing the old GTA's so this ad will target them perfectly. It targeted people with a good source of income by showing the high quality of work that was produced for the ad. You can tell right off the bat this isn't gonna be a cheap game just based on the ad alone. And for the loyal GTA gamers and content creators, this is exactly what they want. They want to see as much gameplay as they can, but also a good storyline because every GTA game is known for its crazy storylines. The story game mode for GTA is probably what is played most between playing online and the story mode. So being able to get a good glimpse of Jason's story and being able to get good gameplay is great for these specific audiences.

Article about GTA 6 Ad:https://www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2025/5/24/gta-vi-trailer-2-review

    The way Rockstar Games uses social media to advertise their game is by posting online when they have big announcements about the game or any trailer, and they also send out emails to anyone signed up for Rockstar Games. This is working very well for them, but it's only because they have their work cut out for them. Since GTA has already been big and popular for such a long time, people have been dying for a new game from them. So they don't have to do much other than make simple posts online and emails to remind people about them. In the article above, it says, "The second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI is not very good on many levels. Does it matter? Not really, at least in terms of it affecting Rockstar's ability to build hype. GTA is so big and popular that people eat up every frame of footage, no matter the delivery system. (Lieu 1)" This statement just shows how popular GTA is. This writer knows this ad wasn't produced great and could've been way better, but also realizes that it doesn't matter that much for Rockstar Games because they know every person is just looking forward more for what's new and not worrying how the ad was made. I think they made this ad good enough for its audience because of how many people just want GTA 6 to come out already. But if this were a smaller company, this ad wouldn't be as effective. If I were watching the ad and had never known about GTA before watching this ad, I would not buy this game. I say this because I felt like it was sloppy with how they jumped from scene to scene with no exact purpose. I feel like I couldn't fully understand what I'm getting other than a game where you can commit a crime and live a couple's crazy life. I probably would recommend this ad to see what other people think about this ad, but I wouldn't promote buying the game in my opinion, based on the ad. I feel like this ad is only good if you don't fully look for the good and bad, but instead focus only on gameplay. Since I have played GTA 5 and know about Rockstar Games, I know this game will be one of the best games to ever be released because of how long they have been working on it. You wouldn't be able to tell much based on the ad, but if you're a fan of Rockstar Games and GTA, you will buy GTA 6 no matter how you feel about the ad.

    In all, this was a great ad to realize you can be really lucky with a supportive fanbase and not make a great ad, but still be able to be successful when promoting it. The GTA fanbase is very strong and loyal to the game. I realized how much better they could've made this ad, but for them, it doesn't matter because they are still getting the hype just because of the game GTA 6. The most surprising thing when looking into this ad was how the ad got messy fast. It went from a slow story of Jason's (main character) life, to as soon as the music kicked in, it got away from any storyline line but more so trying to fit as many clips of the high action gameplay. There was some storyline with the couple committing a crime and some words shared from them, but for the most part, it was just a mess of so many quick clips of different things that had no correlation. I think this game will do very well on release, but this ad is not one of Rockstar Games' best, even though it was produced with very high quality.

Cited Sources:

• Loveridge, Sam, et al. “GTA 6: Everything we know so far.” GamesRadar+, www.gamesradar.com/gta-6-guide.
• Lieu, Derek. “GTA VI Trailer 2 Review — Derek Lieu Creative - Game Trailer Editor.” Derek Lieu Creative, 24 May 2025, www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2025/5/24/gta-vi-trailer-2-review.
• Rockstar Games. “Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 2.” YouTube, 6 May 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQRLujxTm3c.
• Henry, Derek Strickland. "GTA 6 Will Devour Billions of Dollars in Spending, Analyst Says." TweakTown, 2 Nov. 2023, www.tweaktown.com/news/104999/gta-6-will-devour-billions-of-dollars-in-spending-analyst-says/index.htmlOpens a new window.