Robert Downey Jr on using Huawei P30 Pro to promote OnePlus 7 Pro: 'It's time to upgrade'

OnePlus has been pushing brand promotion extremely hard these past years, so much so that it roped in the popular Hollywood star Robert Downey Jr to endorse the newly-launched flagship OnePlus 7 Pro. But a recent post on Weibo put RDJ and OnePlus in an awkward position, as the Iron Man of the Marvel Universe used Huawei P30 Pro to promote OnePlus 7 Pro.

Even though the faux pas post was taken down shortly after, screengrabs of the post had gone viral, creating a stir on the internet. The actor was trolled for the gaffe, to which he has responded at last.

In a post on Weibo last week, RDJ tried to put an end to the controversy by pushing his assistant under the bus. He said, "Well, I guess it's time to upgrade my assistant to a new OnePlus 7 Pro so mistakes don't happen again."

OnePlus had also been at the receiving end of criticism when the news of Downey Jr signed up for the brand ambassador broke out. Fans couldn't fathom that OnePlus paid "huge endorsement fees to the actor instead of upgrading the phone's features." But celebs getting involved in such controversies isn't entirely new.

In India, Anushka Sharma was trolled for promoting Google Pixel 2 XL on Twitter using an iPhone. Recently, Wonder Woman of the DC-verse, Gal Gadot, had also been at the receiving end of the trolls for promoting Huawei Mate 10 Pro from an iPhone. RDJ, however, is one of the few celebs who owned up the blunder.

Not just celebs, even brands have made a similar goof up. Samsung's Nigeria had twitter about the Galaxy Note 9 using an iPhone. In cases like these, the brands spending a fortune on endorsements give free and organic publicity to rivals.