Mobile phone giant Huawei recently released advertorials in anticipation of its upcoming P30 Pro camera. But some of the image samples on the teaser campaign appeared to have been shot on a DSLR and not the new camera advertised.
The photos in the ad were found out to be stock images uploaded online and not original shots by the phone advertised. It was discovered that one of the photos was identical to a portfolio uploaded in 2019, and another image was seen on stock site Getty Images. Take a look at the stock image below:
Meanwhile here is the image from the ad:
The P30 Pro camera, according to the ad, would have four cameras, a 7x zoom and a periscope-style “superzoom” camera. But with this new revelation that the campaign photo was not from the camera, customers are unsure if the phone’s camera actually does what it says in the ad.
In August 2018, another Huawei commercial for its Nova 3 had photo features in the ad that were supposedly faked. They weren’t original images from the phone.
The advertorial, which is a teaser for the actual campaign, is a bad look for Huawei, especially as it should be projecting the work of the new P30 Pro camera.
It’s very possible Huawei simply licensed these photos for its teaser campaign rather than outright copying them, but using them to represent photos taken using a smartphone is deceitful.
Huawei has since added disclaimers to the photos used in the teaser. The new clarification explains that they are creative ads meant for reference only.
If this will affect the actual sales of the new product, only time will tell.