Spider-Man Fans Call Out BMW Over Forced Brand New Day Ads: “This is Black Mirror”
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is setting records left and right, and the film has drawn positive reactions from both critics and fans. What isn’t drawing a positive reaction, however, is the collaboration between Spider-Man: Brand New Day and BMW, as Spider-Man fans are calling out BMW for their forced Brand New Day ad that fans were never even asked to download.
There’s a growing list of BMW owners expressing frustration about BMW’s latest advertising collaboration, which is with Sony and Marvel Studios for Brand New Day. Typically this wouldn’t be that big a deal, as special collaborations happen all the time, but not only is this in the form of an ad that takes up your entire screen when in the car, but you are never asked to download or install it (via THR). Instead, it just automatically appears on your dash screen and starts to play, and fans weren’t thrilled with Sony and Marvel’s choice, with one person saying, “This is Black Mirror.”
Spider-Man’s New BMW Ad Draws Unfortunate Comparisons
As news of the ad spread, some posted videos of the ad in action, which takes up the whole screen. Admittedly, it does look kind of cool as Spider-Man swings across the screen, but it’s the fact that you don’t have a choice to download it and you can’t skip it or remove it. Some of the comments in the BMW Reddit forum include “Insanely dystopian”, “That’s some absolute bulls***”, “$130K to get a Spider-Man commercial”, and “Sounds like a Black Mirror episode.”
Another popular comparison was to Apple’s famous U2 stunt that put the new U2 album in everyone’s iTunes libraries automatically, whether they wanted it or not. DarthLenny wrote, “Wait till you get the new U2 album. OTA update!!!!”. Livinalieontimna wrote, “One of the car companies is very close to a U2 album moment with all this s****. Hopefully that will be an end to it.”
Ceacar took a moment to spotlight what this could turn into, writing, “This is so cool. I can’t wait for the day that when you start the car, you have to watch a minute along advertisement on the giant infotainment screen, they’ll use your eye tracking to be sure you are staring at the advertisement, looking away the instantly paused the ad, you have to stare at the screen for a full minute. Then you can drive.” Then gamma55 added, “But you can only drive for 30 mins, then you need to watch 3 ads for another 30.”
TonitoBontio sees an upgrade subscription in the future, writing, “
You’ll need iDrive extra premium to go ad free”. Yahyoh then added, “Paying 50-100k for a car, yet still getting ADs…next we need adblocker for cars i guess? 🤡”. Hopefully this isn’t a prelude to another ad for Avengers: Doomsday, but guess we’ll just have to wait and see if the next character BMWs see is Doctor Doom.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.
