Look at the media campaign set up by Rockstar for their release of GTA V

1. Grand Theft Auto V
Media Campaign
Jack Willoughby

2. Context and Information
• Grand Theft Auto is a computer game series based on criminal
activities and life. The game series is produced by Rockstar Games,
which is founded by two British brothers Sam and Dan Houser, is an
American video game publisher based in New York City. They have
made 8 games that go into the GTA series but they also have made
many other games but they all fall into a wide category of action and
thrillers. They have faced much controversy since they began with
every single game being criticized for promoting and glamourizing the
violent lifestyle of criminals.
Sam

3. Campaign stunts
Trailers
• The first ever legit advertising stunt that Rockstar published of GTA V was the announce trailer which was released on the
2nd of November 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkkoHAzjnUs . This trailer to this day holds more than 50
million views on YouTube. A year later Rockstar were planning to release a second trailer but hurricane Sandy cut off
power to the Rockstar offices in New York. It was then finally released on the 14th November 2012 and the fans absolutely
loved it.
• Then on the 26th April 2013, three trailers were released each focusing on the three main protagonists of the game.
• This was followed up with another trailer on the 9th July which showed actual gameplay for the first time, many fans
worldwide went crazy over this trailer specifically because we finally got a look at the shooting and driving mechanics of
the game, which is basically the most important features of the game because it revolves around the criminal lifestyle so
guns and cars play a big role in that lifestyle that Rockstar are trying to duplicate.
• Protagonist’s Trailers-
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyGhnBFFAqY

4. Social Media If you havent played GTA V before its basically one
huge parody on real life, with less murder, drugs
and everything else. But in the game there is a cult
known as Epsilon Program which is making fun of
the religion of scientology and in the game there
are countless references to it, such as the
“donations” that you have to give and the weird
stages you have to go through to become a part of
the group but anyway there was a twitter account
made portraying themselves as the Epsilon
Program along with the official website. This all
began on the 25/07/12. Many people began to
found it and it wasn’t forced on the public at all but
once one fan realized it was out there, well every
other GTA fan took to their browsers to find it.
http://www.epsilonprogram.com

6. Print adverts
• Why were the print adverts so effective? well firstly they were printed
to a massive scale making them visible for miles but then again they
also printed small scale posters to fit into bus stops and shop
windows. They all include the same images and colour scheme, also
they show off the classic Rockstar art which creates a brand identity
for the game so over a course of time it becomes more memorable to
the audience which builds to the suspense up to the release date,
because fans are getting more and more reminded of the release of
the game which puts more strain on the wait. Meaning that as soon
as the game hits the shelves fans will be fighting over it.

7. These posters were placed on the side of a convention center, now ill talk about
the actual scale of the each individual picture but then again the reason the
pictures are separate is connotating that each character in the game has the own
narrative story and have separable gameplay. Also from ground level the
audience will be looking at the characters from a low angle making them look
dominant to the “ordinary” citizens of the city and that they are above life itself,
which we know from the history of the GTA series that these characters will be
intense criminals so these placement of the picture's works perfectly for the
putting across these individuals personalities.
The colour scheme of the background for each characters represents their personalities
Michael (right) has a green background, green is a colour that is we already
subconsciously link to money, this represents Michael's greed and wealth in the in the
game. Also green is made to represent happiness and paradise which Michael likes to
believe he is living in.
Franklin (left) has an orange background which looks hot to the eye so we can get from
that his intentions are bright and he’s trying to make everything better for himself, also
orange is more of a successful colour in the media with young people so this can also
subtly tell the audience that franklin is the “baby” of the group.
Trevor (middle) has a blue background and blue is associated with confidence and
independence, now that is a very good way to describe Trevor's character because he is
the isolated one from the group so he had to become a very independent person but
then again blue is sometimes considered to be seen as harmonic, holy and peaceful so it
may be juxtaposing with his character because even from the trailer we see that Trevor is
definitely not any of the things.

8. What’s the point?
• The reason they put so many different marketing and advertising
stunts for one game is very simple, because Rockstar’s target
audience is extremely wide, not set for ne age group, race or even
gender for that matter even though they have faced much
controversy about that last one. So they have to make it so it can be
seen by practically almost anyone and knowing how big there fan
base is they know that this would be successful and it sure worked
out for them, grossing in over $1 billion in just three days. So putting
there marketing stunts on every platform of media really did help
because it got the word out about the game much quicker and much
more effectively. It also broke a world record for the fastest selling
video game ever.

9. Cohesion
• To create cohesion and connection between the different platforms
and adverts in this campaign they emphasized the unique selling
point of the game, which is that there a three playable protagonists in
this video game. They show this by advertising the game in three
different ways by having separate trailer for each character and
showing single characters in posters, this creates cohesion in the bets
way because it makes the game seem so much more complex and
different from anything else playable on the market and this will
amplify the excitement for the game leading to more sales.