Rockstar could advertise GTA VI by plastering Jason, Lucia and the game’s logo all over Miami.
Instead, it is advertising watches, jewelry, sports cars, nightclubs and fast food that do not exist.
With GTA VI arriving November 19, digital kiosks around Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood have started displaying ads for the fictional brands of Vice City, mixed directly between real-world advertising. Unless you know the game, they look almost legitimate.
The Ads Are The World Building
Pfister, GTA’s Porsche parody, promotes its Comet S2 Cabriolet with “Go topless.” Fictional jeweler Kowalski promises a very large diamond will make you “Suddenly big enough,” while watchmaker Kronos goes with the wonderfully inappropriate “Always come early.”
There are also ads for Burger Shot, Sprunk, Weazel News, nightclubs, sports teams and radio stations from the GTA universe. The branding is deliberately subtle: a small Vice City mark and QR code are often the only indication that these are not real campaigns.
That is what makes the idea so good.
Rockstar is not telling Miami that Vice City is based on it. It is making the city behave as though Vice City already exists.
All the GTA 6 ads I saw on a kiosk in Wynwood (Miami). These shuffled between real ads 😂 https://t.co/l46q91OHRZ
— Joel Franco (@OfficialJoelF) October 19, 2026
A Constraint Made The Campaign Better
There is apparently a practical reason for the approach too.
Creapills reports that some Miami officials objected to the words “Grand Theft Auto” appearing on public property because the phrase literally refers to a crime. So Rockstar leaned into Vice City, the Roman numeral VI and its fictional brands instead.
If that restriction shaped the execution, it may have improved it.
A giant GTA VI poster would be unmistakable advertising. A perfectly straight-faced ad for a fictional luxury watch makes fans stop, decode the reference and share what they found. Everyone else gets a strange piece of advertising that creates curiosity before revealing the game behind it.
And Rockstar is extending that logic across Miami. Vice City beach furniture has appeared on South Beach, fictional vehicles are driving around the city, murals from the game have been recreated at Wynwood Walls, and even a Vice City-branded blimp has been flying over Florida.
A lot of entertainment marketing tries to bring the audience into the world of the story.
Rockstar is doing the opposite.
It is bringing the world into ours.
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