Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and checking out MediaPost’s Marketing Daily, when I came across Tanya Gazdik’s piece about mad-as-hell BMW drivers.

BMW owners are venting online about the automaker’s decision to go back on a promise not to inflict in-vehicle advertising on them.

“Three years after BMW executives said the inside of a car was ‘a private space’ and not a place for advertising, the automaker is facing backlash for rolling out a Spider-Man promotion to infotainment screens around the world,” according to Autoweek. “The move raises concerns that automakers are turning vehicle dashboards into rolling billboards for their literal captive audiences.”

What the hell, Doc – does BMW now stand for Breach My Wheels?

– Drivel, He Said

Dear DHS,

Yeah – this adds a whole new dimension to the old porcupine-and-Beemer joke, right?

The worst part for BMW is that not long ago the automaker assured its customers that it would not do exactly this, as the MediaPost piece noted.

“At the end of the day, I think your car is your last private space,” [senior VP Stephan] Durach told a small group of media members including Marketing Daily during a roundtable discussion in December 2023. “It’s where you can do whatever you want by yourself — you have the right temperature, the music you want. To say I’m selling the screen to play a commercial — I don’t see it. It’s a private space.”

The BMW honcho didn’t see it then, but it’s there for all to see now, along with a banner ad that says “Surprise! Spider-Man just dropped into your BMW!”

With that, BMW joins the inglorious ranks of other brands that made initial murmurs about being ad virgins, from Google (which technically promised ads would be clearly marked and never mixed up with natural search results – you be the judge of that) to Open AI’s ChatGPT (see Anisha Sircar’s Forbes piece for details).

New joke: Q. What’s the difference between NASCAR and a BMW?

A. With NASCAR, the ads are on the outside.

Not very funny, is it?