Huawei’s marketing team are at it again, coming under fire for misrepresenting its new flagship’s camera capabilities using stock photos to showcase the P30’s periscope lens.
The campaign’s slogan “rewrite the rules” now has a whole new meaning, especially in reference to attribution.
It has been reported and confirmed that the next Huawei flagship will feature a periscope camera,specific details have not been officially released.
However, just like last year when Huawei was caught faking selfie camera shots, internet sleuths spotted and tipped GSMArena that Huawei was again taking the easier route when it came to its marketing strategy.
The photos uploaded to Huawei’s official Weibo account included a Getty Images stock photo of an erupting volcano and a photo with a child and ducks is similar to one uploaded to a portfolio in 2009.
To be fair, Huawei isn’t the only smartphone brand that uses or licensed high-quality images for its campaign. However, in those instances, it is generally clearly marked.
This strategy insinuates that users can produce the same quality of images with the P30, a wholly unproven theory.
Huawei was previously exposed for photoshopping bezels out of its P8 smartphone renders, and in 2016 was caught posting an image on Google+ which claimed to highlight the power of its new P9 camera – which turned out to be captured by a US$4,500 Canon camera.
It’s not a good look for the company, but as it’s not the first time this has happened, it’s very likely that they aren’t going to change strategies now.
Huawei is scheduled to reveal the entire P30 series, including the P30 Pro, in Paris on March 26th.
