Tom Holland in 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day.' Courtesy of Everett Collection BMW: The Ultimate Marketing Machine?
BMW owners are taking to social media to express outrage that the automaker suddenly started pushing ads for Spider-Man: Brand New Day onto their dashboards.
The ads began appearing last week on newer-model vehicles and some drivers who forked up to $160,000 for a luxury car or SUV aren’t very happy about being spammed when they start their cars. The promotion is scheduled to run through Aug. 10, according to the automaker’s press release, and represents a partnership between the automaker and Sony-Marvel.
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Some of the scathing comments on Reddit’s r/BMW forum and other subreddits include: “That’s some absolute bullshit”; “Insanely dystopian”; “This needs to be made illegal before everyone starts doing it”; “$130K to get a Spider-Man commercial”; “sounds like a Black Mirror episode” and simply: “Fuck everything about this.”
A banner touting the film first appears when the car is started, though owners have to click on the ad to see the full video. Still, one owner claimed BMW has been pushing increasingly intrusive videos onto its dashboard space.
“It’s pretty clear that BMW has been trying to slowly normalize displaying ads,” they wrote. “They started off with mostly just celebratory videos, which slowly became ads about their own products, and now they feel confident enough to move on to third-party ads. I think the more nefarious part is that, with the screen controlling almost every feature of the car, you’re essentially forced to watch the ad before you can interact with your own property.”
Several commenters compared the Brand New Day ad to Apple’s famously backfired 2014 stunt of putting a U2 album into the iTunes libraries of more than half a billion customers.
BMW’s press release branded the video “a special surprise” for its drivers. A company spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on the backlash.
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, there’s also product placement for BMW when Spidey (Tom Holland) finds himself in a random civilian’s BMW and the driver activates the car’s Sport Mode.
Cars are among the most common forms of product placement in movies, from Aston Martin in James Bond films to Mercedes-Benz in Devil Wears Prada 2 and Chevrolet in Transformers, but it is usually a one-way street, with the car being featured inside the movie, not the other way around.
According to TechSpot, the company previously said it wouldn’t sell ads on its dashboards. In December 2023, a BMW senior vice president said during an industry roundtable: “To say I’m selling the screen to play a commercial — I don’t see it. It’s a private space.”
Alex Weprin contributed to this report.
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