With great power comes great responsibility, and BMW is using that power to beam “Spider-Man” ads into its cars.
The German auto giant has been showing a banner ad for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” in cars since late July as part of a brand tie-up with Marvel’s latest blockbuster.
The banner reads “Surprise! Spider-Man just dropped into your BMW!” Tapping the ad triggers a full-screen animation that plays across the Control Display, the main center screen, while the car’s ambient lighting changes color in sync.
The animation follows a BMW driving through a city street as Spider-Man swings overhead. It closes on Spider-Man dragging the BMW logo down the frame, resolving into the end card: “BMW and SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY EXCLUSIVELY IN CINEMAS.”
BMW said the animation will run in around 70 markets until August 10 on suitably equipped vehicles with a production date after July 2020.
Its press release described the campaign as a special surprise for drivers as part of its collaboration with “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the newest installment in the superhero franchise, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya. Several BMW cars feature in the film, the German automaker said.
Some online were unimpressed by the marketing tactic.
“I’m never buying a BMW,” wrote Paul Graham, the cofounder of Y Combinator, in a Tuesday X post reacting to a clip of the in-car ad.
“Wow I can’t believe how disappointing that is,” one person wrote under footage posted to the r/BMW subreddit the day the campaign began. “Absolutely not,” said another.
The clip circulated on X and drew similar criticism.
BMW has a long history of movie tie-ups, having collaborated with Marvel before in films like “Black Widow” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” During the 1990s, BMWs were the main cars used in three consecutive “James Bond” films.
Delivering messages directly to in-car displays is not new.
BMW has sent Christmas and New Year animations to the Control Display for several years, using the same mechanism: a banner at startup, a full-screen animation, backing music, and an ambient light show.
However, while the past animations were devoted to Christmas and New Year greetings from the BMW brand itself, this one promotes a third-party product and ends with a title card that includes details about the movie being shown “exclusively in cinemas.”
BMW said in an emailed statement to Business Insider that the Festive App, where the Spider-Man animation is shown, is “designed to provide customers with optional themed animations and messages linked to a range of global and local occasions. It is not a form of advertising.”
In December 2023, Stephan Durach, the company’s senior vice president for connected company development, was asked whether BMW would sell in-car screen space to run commercials. He said he didn’t see it happening because the cabin is “a private space.”
Much of the criticism of the campaign has cited BMW’s previous plans to launch a heated-seat subscription, which would have seen owners charged a monthly fee to switch on hardware already fitted to cars they had bought outright.
The subscription was dropped in 2023 after a backlash, with executives later conceding the rollout had been handled badly.
