Spotify billboards show up with GTA VI artwork
Spotify is running billboards with the GTA VI artwork several musicians posted on Tuesday. Rockstar hasn't officially confirmed what the artists' role is.
Spotify has kicked off a billboard campaign built around Grand Theft Auto VI. The billboards use the same Rockstar-style artwork that several musicians posted on their own accounts yesterday, September 15. According to GTAVice.net, they've been spotted so far in Los Angeles, New York and Miami. IGN mentions Los Angeles and New York and embeds a post from today by @TexFunz2 showing more of them.
Travis Scott, Future, Morgan Wallen and Keith Richards all shared the artwork (quite a mixed crowd), but none of them said what they were teasing. Rockstar hasn't officially confirmed what role any of these artists play in the game, or whether the images are tied to specific songs. So the billboards are real, but what they're for is still guesswork.
IGN thinks Spotify clearly has some kind of partnership with Rockstar. The theories it lists:
- the artists made exclusive music for GTA VI (there's a precedent: Rockstar once brought exclusive Dr. Dre tracks to GTA Online in an update);
- Spotify previews music from the game before launch;
- Spotify playlists work inside the game. IGN admits that one is hard to imagine, but says it's possible.
This wouldn't be Rockstar's first big marketing partner. GTA VI's first gameplay trailer premiered on Netflix, an idea Rockstar pitched to Netflix itself, and it became the most-watched thing on the service in its first week. IGN also says Rockstar is planning a campaign in Miami, with signage being built there right now.
This Saturday marks two months until release, and IGN's guess is that Rockstar could reveal what it's doing with Spotify before the week is out. We'll be watching. I grew up on Flash FM, but I wouldn't complain if I could play my own playlist on the streets of Vice City. What would you want: your own playlists, or just Rockstar's radio stations?
