I'd like to know what are the ROIs for an advertisement like that. I can't really imagine that the people who will buy the game will buy it due to this advertisement. At the same time though, Rockstar probably knows what they are doing.
It's extremely hard to measure, but stunts like that seem to definitely add to "hype". I mean, it's being posted organically here on HN, isn't it!
"Hype" definitely gets sales. It leads to people checking out the game/movie, paying attention when they otherwise might not have - it's a form of social proof.
$800m in sales, first day. How much of that was due to marketing? Who knows. But it looks pretty positive to me, and stunts like this are part of it. Almost certainly positive, IMO.
The overwhelming majority of revenue comes in the first weeks of a game launch. For a major franchise like this, you safely know what minimum dollar amount you'll make. Invest in market for hopes of a big hit.
Sure, ROI is tough. But think about the wrong decision to not market and sales flops in the first 2-3 weeks. You can't make up that lost revenue from launch.
Exactly -- and from a GTA franchise standpoint, their biggest success is just hyping the release as much as possible. They have tons and tons of fanboys who all rushed to buy copies on opening night. There was no doubt this would be a success --
But to build awareness and convince more people to go out and buy it during the opening weeks, that's where a poster like this comes into play. Constant visible reminders of the release date turn a 500m release into an 800m release
