{"id":68129,"date":"2026-08-06T22:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/68129\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T22:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:00:08","slug":"bmw-owners-angry-over-spider-man-ads-appearing-on-dashboard-screens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/68129\/","title":{"rendered":"BMW Owners Angry Over Spider-Man Ads Appearing on Dashboard Screens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BMW has enraged customers by sending ads for Spider-Man: Brand New Day directly to in-car infotainment systems. An ad appears as a notification when starting the car, and when tapped, it plays a full-screen 19-second animation with music and a light show.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/spider-man-bmw.jpg\"   alt=\"spider man bmw\" width=\"1993\" height=\"1122\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1058759\"\/><br \/>The ad started going out on July 27, and it is set to continue through August 10. Cars built after July 2020 with BMW Operating System 7 or newer are displaying the Spider-Man promo in more than 70 markets.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/BMW\/comments\/1vcbyp6\/bmw_betrays_owners_with_full_screen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BMW owners on Reddit<\/a> are understandably unhappy with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/BMW\/comments\/1v802of\/got_this_commercial_in_my_car_today_as_part_of\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the unsolicited ad<\/a> showing up in their vehicles. One user said it&#8217;s &#8220;classless and tacky&#8221; for a car that costs over $100,000, and another said it was &#8220;disgusting.&#8221; Others asked for an opt-out button, and predicted more ads would be shown in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Some users compared it to the U2 album &#8220;Songs of Innocence&#8221; that Apple pushed out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2014\/09\/12\/u2-songs-of-innocence-2-million-downloads-itunes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to all iTunes users<\/a> back in 2014. Apple did not allow users to decline or delete the album, leading to widespread backlash. Apple ultimately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2014\/09\/15\/apple-tool-for-deleting-u2-album\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">did add a tool<\/a> for deleting the album.<\/p>\n<p>BMW sent out a press release highlighting the ad campaign in late July, claiming it was an &#8220;exclusive Spider-Man animation&#8221; that was a &#8220;special surprise&#8221; for BMW owners.<\/p>\n<p>To celebrate the partnership with Spider-ManTM: Brand New Day, BMW has a special surprise for its drivers. [&#8230;] Starting the car brings up a special banner in the Control Display. Clicking on it then activates the Spider-ManTM animation, comprising a full-screen festive animation in the Control Display with aptly chosen backing music and an accompanying light show courtesy of the ambient lighting system.<\/p>\n<p>The notification for the Spider-Man ad is going out to compatible vehicles automatically, but owners can avoid the ad by not tapping to play it after receiving the notification. It&#8217;s also been added to the Festive app on the in-car system.<\/p>\n<p>In response to complaints, BMW told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theautopian.com\/bmw-is-showing-commercials-on-their-cars-dash-screens-and-they-want-you-to-think-its-a-treat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Autopian<\/a> the Spider-Man animation is not an ad and is &#8220;part of a broader brand partnership with the film.&#8221; BMW vehicles also appear in the Spider-Man movie.<\/p>\n<p>BMW has pushed similar animated videos for holidays in the past, but car owners found the Spider-Man video to be too close to a commercial. As <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/08\/06\/bmw-no-ads\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daring Fireball<\/a> points out, BMW said in late 2023 that it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediapost.com\/publications\/article\/391876\/bmw-exec-no-plans-to-sell-in-vehicle-ads.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">would not sell advertising<\/a> on its in-car displays.<\/p>\n<p>BMW was one of the first companies to adopt Apple&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/carplay\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CarPlay<\/a> system, and it has long been an Apple partner. The BMW notification is part of the default in-car operating system, and it does not appear as part of \u200cCarPlay\u200c.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BMW has enraged customers by sending ads for Spider-Man: Brand New Day directly to in-car infotainment systems. An&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20955],"tags":[21597,6213,28971,39915,22130,39914,39913],"class_list":["post-68129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bmw","tag-apple","tag-bmw","tag-ios","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-mac","tag-rumors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}