BMW owners unhappy about the appearance of "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" advertising on their cars' central displays
BMW pushed a promo animation for "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" to the screens of its cars and called it a special surprise for drivers.
The campaign started on July 27, 2026 and runs through August 10. BMW claims coverage across more than 70 markets.
The mechanic doesn't quite work the way discussions describe it, though. When the car starts up, a banner appears on the central display, and only tapping it launches a full-screen animation with music and a light show synced to the cabin ambient lighting. The clip wraps up with a QR code and rental information.
The list of compatible cars turned out pretty extensive:
production date after July 2020
BMW Operating System 7, 8, 8.5, 9 or X
participating markets, of which there are more than seventy
trim level with a central display
We're talking about millions of vehicles here, not just the fresh Neue Klasse lineup. That said, some owners of 2021, 2023, and 2025 model year cars say they haven't seen anything like this, so actual reach apparently depends on market and data transmission settings.
The main complaint isn't about the clip itself but about the precedent it sets. BMW remotely placed third-party advertising into an already sold car, and no owner gave consent for that. Comparisons have popped up to Apple pushing a U2 album into users' libraries back in 2014, and to BMW own attempt to charge a subscription for heated seats.
An old statement from the brand resurfaced too. Back in December 2023, BMW senior vice president for connected services Stephan Durach publicly said the company would never sell screen space for ad content, calling the car a personal space. That position hasn't been publicly revisited since, and the current campaign is being framed as a one-off partnership with the movie rather than a policy shift.
Some of the audience thinks the reaction is overblown, since the banner is easy to ignore and some owners only found it while scrolling through menus. The counterargument is that these things rarely stop at the first iteration, and the mere fact that an ad element showed up on the dashboard already moves the line of what's acceptable.
