BMW owners are furious after the automaker began pushing adverts for "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" onto their dashboard screens, with many decrying the move as intrusive and unwanted. The ads, part of a promotional tie-in between BMW and Sony-Marvel, appear as a banner when the car is started, drawing accusations that BMW is normalising in-car advertising despite previously insisting it would never sell dashboard ad space.

The campaign began last week and is due to run until 10 August, affecting newer-model vehicles including cars costing up to $160,000. Angry drivers took to Reddit's r/BMW forum, with comments comparing the stunt to Apple's widely criticised 2014 move of force-loading a U2 album onto millions of iTunes accounts, and branding it "dystopian." BMW's press release described the video as a "special surprise," and the film itself features BMW product placement, though the company has not responded to the backlash.