I became a podcast bro before GTA6.
Who would’ve thought?
This month, we are plugging KidSmart! To learn how to donate time, money, or resources, please visit https://kidsmartstl.org/.
SOURCES: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sbYaavjT1W0HLYtgGJMiz7lv-Jwa6yISPKaliCJcz1k/edit?usp=sharing
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes: https://www.themarketinggateway.com
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
So this week, Netlfix is doing something it’s never done before – it’s serving as the exclusive launch platform for the premiere of a sneak peek at one of this decade’s most hotly-anticipated video games: Grand Theft Auto VI. Or GTA VI, as it’s known among its fans.
And if you’re wondering just how long it’s been since Grand Theft Auto V, which is still one of the top games in the world, by the way, generating around $10 billion in revenue since its release, the answer is 13 years, because GTA V was released in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox One consoles.
We’re currently on the PlayStation 5, by the way.
The 18-year-olds who were legally allowed to buy GTA V when it first debuted are old enough to have career jobs, mortgages and kids of their own by now.
There’s never been a series quite like Grand Theft Auto, either. It’s generated a dozen games, quite a few re-releases and a lot of lifelong fans as it’s offered people the chance to take part in an open world sandbox of criminal behavior.
Though the series is set in a world very similar to our own, the games hold up their own funhouse mirrors to the real-world New York City, Los Angeles and Miami in the forms of the fictional Empire City, San Andreas and Vice City, the latter of which is the setting of the new game.
And boy, does it look incredible from what’s been shown. This is a game where you can leave downtown and explore the vast reaches of the game’s fictional take on Florida, complete with swamps and alligators and highways to drive on and speedboats in the ocean and aircraft in the sky.
You can stick up gas stations or go to the gym and work out or enjoy visiting all sorts of entertainment and attractions, ranging from family-friendly to *ahem* a little less so.
It’s going to be a monster hit when it comes out this November, and its development studio, Rockstar, and its publisher, Take Two Interactive, have taken the very strange tactic of doing very little marketing for the game, holding their cards very close to their vest and showing fans just a few small, tantalizing snippets.
But that all changes with the premiere of their sneak peak video, which Netlfix is going to have exclusive rights to show a full six hours before it goes live on YouTube and the GTA VI website.
And it’s actually worth asking – why Netflix, and what could possibly be gained from six hours of exclusivity?
The answer is about more than just some earned media buzz. The truth is, Netflix is getting into advertising, and this is a bold experiment for them to show just how good their platform is for product marketing.
So let’s dig a little beneath the buzz and look at what’s really going on!
I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this is the Marketing Gateway.
So before we talk about GTA VI’s premiere and what it actually means for Netflix, let’s try to understand what’s actually happening behind the scenes at the notoriously opaque streaming company, because Netflix actually has a problem right now that’s not easy to solve:
It’s reached a saturation point where continued growth is going to get harder and harder.
So Netflix’s business model as a streaming video on demand service started out as a pivot from its DVDs by mail business, but once streaming proved to be the more popular option, their goal was to boost subscribers.
Netflix first locked down a lot of popular content to keep other services from competing with them early, then began creating their own content with productions like House of Cards, Black Mirror, Stranger Things, Wednesday and KPOP Demon Hunters, and then also started cracking down on password sharing and creating various tiers of accounts so it could raise prices.
But all this meant Netflix was pretty much maximizing its subscriber base, and even worse, as other streamers got into the game, they had more competition to worry about. Netflix had long said it wasn’t going to get into showing ads to its users but… well, you know how these things go.
Netflix adopted a strategy other streamers were using to offer an ad-supported tier and found themselves growing rapidly among new users, up from 70 million on that tier in 2024 to 250 million in 2025.
As you might expect, that made Netflix start thinking very differently about ads, because Netflix has three things that make it a very attractive environment for digital advertising.
They have eyeballs, often for hours at a time.
They have deep data on every viewer.
And they have a powerfully-tuned algorithm that’s already really good at keeping people on the platform with recommended content.
The only other platform that even comes close to this is YouTube, which is, by the way, the only competitor Netflix seems to take that seriously, because YouTube is amazingly sticky when it comes to keeping users glued to it and excellent at serving targeted ads.
The advertising business is booming for Netflix, and it just announced this month that it’s doubled its ad commitments, added in an AI tool that creates original ads from pre-existing assets and then lets advertisers optimize what works, added in interactive formats at, of course, extended their Pause Ad format, which displays during pauses between episodes or at other natural breaks.
Netflix has also been aggressively tracking user behavior to ensure ads are being served when viewers are attentive and to force them to view ads in active windows or full-screen app mode before proceeding to their content, preventing users from skipping or de-focusing ads like they can on YouTube and other platforms.
But digital advertising isn’t nearly as lucrative as paid sponsorships, and as a content production company, Netflix is already well-versed in soliciting product placements and other promotional partnerships to help subsidize its content. If you’ve watched Stranger Things, Emily in Paris, Sense 8, Queer Eye or Love, you’ve probably noticed just how much product placement these shows have for major brands like Coca-Cola, Lexus, Apple, Adidas and 7-Eleven.
But product placement has to fit the show to work, and if you have a fantasy show like One Piece or the upcoming Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, you can’t slap name brand objects all over the place because it doesn’t fit the content.
And so Netflix tried another tactic this summer with a Will Farrell golf comedy series called The Hawk.
Now, I’ll first say that by all accounts, The Hawk isn’t very good. It has a score of 48 out of 100 on Metacritic right now, which is not great, and a 6.4 out of 10 on IMDB, which suggests it hasn’t found a lot of fans in viewers either.
But it was also a test vehicle for three brand partnerships that all feature in and outside the show. The first is Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which just relaunched its brand and is putting some dollars behind getting its name back out there, and the second is Genesis, the Korean luxury car brand, which is pushing its GV80 luxury SUV.
Both brands are integrated into the show – Luke Wilson’s character actually plays the sponsorship manager for Mike’s Hard Lemonade. But both brands have also been able to use the actors, characters and assets outside of the show as well in additional content and product promotions.
The third brand is SKIMS, the apparel brand from Kim Kardashian, which launched a campaign this summer that features Will Ferrell as the main character of The Hawk, Lonnie Hawkins, modeling a pair of cotton briefs, a rib tank and tube socks.
This doesn’t feature in the show, but helped generate buzz for it in a provocative outdoor campaign seen in Times Square as well as showcased on social media outlets and media sources online.
Say what you will about Kim Kardashian, but she and her business empire really know how to attract attention.
So, how does all of this connect to Grand Theft Auto VI? Well, there’s one more piece of context that’s important, and it’s video gamers.
Netflix has been trying, and failing, to attract gamers to its platform for many years. They’ve tried interactive experiences like Minecraft: Story Mode and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, they’ve tried mobile apps and cloud games based around their popular gaming-adjacent shows like Stranger Things, and they’ve even operated a games publisher that, just this summer, basically shut down two of its three studios, Night School Studios and Moonloot Games, after shutting down another, Big Finish Games, last year.
Netflix wants access to the $150 billion global gaming market, but to get there, they say they want to pivot to kid-friendly fare, party games and mainstream stuff like FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition.
But a lot of people simply scratch their heads and say, “Netflix has games?”
And that’s been a problem for many companies that try to get into video games without actually being committed to the business of video games. They’re not remotely the same sort of entertainment content as movies or tv shows, and they require a completely different strategy.
And that’s where GTA VI comes in.
The way video games are currently marketed is through a model that includes a mixture of press and direct to consumer showcases. Pre-release hype drives pre-orders, pre-orders drive launch day sales, and launch day sales drive launch week and month sales.
Research from the firm NewZoo, which specializes in gaming, says that there are three types of launch patterns for major titles, and GTA IV, being part of a long series with a great track record, fits the most favorable of these patterns. It’s on track to make billions of dollars this year.
But because there’s been so little shown about this game this close to launch – and we’re only about two and a half months away at this point – Rockstar and Take 2 have been building up the anticipation by releasing very small details.
And these guys know how far they can push things – just announcing the cover art got them millions of clicks the day they did it!
The partnership with Netflix allows them to add something special to the anticipation of just putting up a trailer on YouTube. Netflix is now pushing the game too and will be a major part of the final marketing push into launch.
I suspect Netflix probably paid for this opportunity in some way, because it seems like they wanted to beat YouTube in being the first to have this particular content. But it’s going to give Netflix a huge amount of visibility not as a streaming platform, but as a marketing platform, able to showcase the first extended look of a massive video game to its own users first.
And that is quite a gamble, because they’re only going to have six hours of exclusivity for all this effort. Six hours during working hours for most people in the United States – the earliest you can even view the content is at 3PM Eastern Time on August 27.
But during that six hours, they’ll be at the center of social media discussion, media coverage and word of mouth as people scrutinize all the details. Netflix doesn’t let websites embed videos of its content, and the only way to see it legally will be to log into their platform.
And that suits Netflix just fine, because it will help get their name out there in association with gaming, will give them a boost in subscribers and viewers, and will make them, at least for the day, the center of the universe where gamers are concerned.
But the gamble is in knowing what to do with all that.
My guess is that Netflix plans to use this as part of its pitch to advertisers going forward to show them what a really highly-hyped piece of advertorial content can do for a brand.
They may chase after other video game companies and media companies to try to get them to do similar launches of anticipated content – for example, they could convince Sony to launch its PlayStation State of Play on their service first – but they’ll never get the same exposure they’re going to get for GTA IV because it’s unlikely we’ll have another game quite like GTA VI. If the next game takes another decade and a half to make, the whole landscape of video gaming will be completely different by 2040 anyhow.
So Netflix’s other move is to show its other brand partners all the data and metrics and opportunities this gleaned and to try to get more product placement and advertorial content.
Here’s the problem, though. Netflix still has to appease its paying users too, and people who are willing to pay not to have ads in their platforms are often the first to abandon platforms that do force ads on people.
What’s more, the more data Netflix shares with advertisers about its users, the more actual data that Netflix has traditionally obscured will start to come out and make it clear what is and isn’t working on the platform.
There’s another problem, too. Grand Theft Auto VI has a leaker who’s been showing off the game early. No one knows how they got access to a build of it or how far they’re going to take these leaks, and there’s been a circus-like atmosphere around it, including a lot of scammers who have tried to turn it into an opportunity to boost cryptocurrency.
And this is a huge issue for Rockstar and Take Two. The first time there was a leaker back in 2022, they were able to track down the 17-year-old responsible and find out he’d hacked them with an Amazon Fire Stick. Ouch.
So it’s possible that, before the Netflix premiere, anything Rockstar was going to show off about its new game will already be known, along with a lot of things they were trying to release through coordinated media exclusives. It’s quite possibly going to take a lot of the wind out of their sails.
And, potentially, Netflix’s!
We’ll see what comes of it. But if there’s one conclusion you can draw from all of this, it’s that Netflix is going to take these lessons seriously as it continues to grow its ad business.
And that could be a very lucrative, or a very risky, future for its platform.
I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this has been The Marketing Gateway. See ya next time!
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