BMW Facing Backlash for In-Vehicle ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Ads

The promotional campaign for the latest Spider-Man film feels impossible to avoid—especially if you drive a BMW.

Drivers of the German luxury marque’s vehicles have been bombarded with ads for Spider-Man: Brand New Day on their infotainment systems. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a fierce backlash, due in part to the automaker’s previous pledge to not utilize in-vehicle advertising.

Since late July, drivers of newer-model BMWs have been treated to banner ads depicting the costumed star of Sony’s latest blockbuster on their infotainment systems. Shortly before Brand New Days hit theaters last week, an over-the-air update was pushed to Bimmers built after 2020 running versions 7 through X of the iDrive operating system in 70 markets around the globe, according to BMW Blog. It resulted in Spider-Man graphics and animations showing up on the system’s “Festive App,” a feature primarily used for sharing season-appropriate messages.

Unsurprisingly, the campaign, which is born out of a partnership between BMW and Sony (the automaker’s vehicles can be seen in the movie), hasn’t gone over too well with drivers. Over the last week, it has been called “Insanely dystopian” and compared to an episode of Black Mirror, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Making matters worse was that the campaign came less than three years after Stephan Durach, the senior vice president of U.I. and U.X. development for the brand, said it would never run ads on its dashboards, and that the area of the car, which is where the infotainment system is located, should be a “private space.”

BMW, for its part, says the graphics and animations are not ads. When reached for comment on Friday, a representative for the automaker told Robb Report that the automaker has no intention of introducing in-vehicle advertising.

“As many of the other stories have noted, the in-vehicle animation is part of a much broader brand partnership which included product placement in the movie and a special edition vehicle on the red carpet of the Los Angeles premiere,” they said. “This was only intended to be a fun experience which celebrates that our vehicles are featured in the new movie. It is available for a limited time and only visible to drivers who proactively initiate it on their vehicle’s touch screen.”

Whatever your feelings about Spider-Man’s takeover of BMW iDrive, there’s no denying that Sony has been quite effective in its efforts to market the latest Spider-Man film. Despite movie audiences supposedly experiencing superhero fatigue, the Wall-Crawler’s latest adventure has earned over $480 million domestically and over $705 million worldwide since its release on July 31. That means that Brand New Day is already the highest-grossing film of 2026 after just one week in theaters.