False advertising may yield good results for a short time, but once consumers have figured out that they haven’t received what they asked for, the wheel of fortune turns. It’s probably only a matter of time before Samsung learns this firsthand. The company was caught using a DSLR photo as part of its advertising campaign for the Galaxy A8 camera.
The DSLR photo in question was taken by a Serbia-based photographer who accuses the South Korean tech giant of using her photo and presenting as a photo taken using the camera on the Samsung Galaxy A8 Star phone.
Dunja Djudjic, who is also a writer, explained in a blog post on DIY Photography how she discovered that the company was using her photo. The photo was taken with a DSLR camera, but Samsung’s website is supposed to feature its own portrait mode technology on the Galaxy A8. Djudjic discovered what Samsung did when she learned that one of her photos uploaded to EyeEm had been sold through Getty Images, a partner of EyeEm.
She wanted to see who had purchased it, as she was excited that her hard work had caught someone’s attention. She performed a reverse image search and discovered that the image was used on Samsung’s official Malaysia page. To her surprise and shock, the photo was presented as having been taken with the Galaxy A8 camera.
There is some difference between the two images, which she said was a result of bad photoshopping by Samsung. She noted that the background of the two photos is different. This change is most likely because Samsung wanted to use portrait mode, which blurs the background in the photo, to showcase the Galaxy A8 camera. However, her photo had already been blurred. As a result, Samsung couldn’t showcase the true effects of portrait mode, so it turned to photoshopping.
Samsung did the same thing in the Galaxy A8 camera campaign on social media, according to DIY Photography. Huawei also used the same strategy earlier this year, using a stock DSLR photo to showcase its phone’s camera.
The issue here is not stealing photos. Stock photos are sold with with a license which allows clients to use the photos for personal and/ or commercial purpose. The issue here is with false advertising. The photo could trick customers into buying the mid-range phone thinking its amazing camera will automatically make a famous Instagram photographer out of them. However, it won’t because the photo in question was taken using a professional camera, and someone invested their time and effort to make it look as good as it is.
The photo can be seen here, but you will have to scroll down to see it.
