Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus shut down a publicity stunt thatg sought to boost its standing among women after it backfired and drew scathing reactions from the public.

OnePlus recently launched an online contest open only to women. It asked women to post their photos along with the company's logo.

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They dubbed the contest, "Ladies First." Alternatively, the contest let women paint or draw the company logo on their "hand/face/whatever."

To ensure the "whatever" part wasn't misunderstood, the company reminded would-be contest participants that nudity wasn't allowed in order to veer away from scandalous pictures.

Well, the "whatever" is precisely what happened.

The first photos posted online were harmless. Then the problems began. "Contestants" posted poorly-made photoshopped pictures to mock the contest.

Some of the photos were of scantily clad women--and men--that had the company logo placed on their "strategic locations."

Then came the backlash from the public and Chinese media. Several news organizations and OnePlus forum members criticized the contest for being ill-advised, inappropriate and sexist.

Even Cyanogen, Inc., the developer of the CyanogenMod operating system the OnePlus One smartphone runs on, expressed its disapproval on Twitter.

"We value all of our users and do not support any contest that objectifies people," Cyanogen wrote on its Twitter page.

The contest was allowed to continue for a few more hours before OnePlus pulled the plug on it.

The company acknowledged the publicity stunt was inappropriate, according to a blog post on its forums.

If the contest had continued, the top 50 "well-liked" females would have received a company T-shirt and an invite to spend around US$300 to US$350 on the company's OnePlus One mobile phone, according to CNET.

If the number of participants reached 500, one of them would have received a complimentary 64 GB OnePlus One smartphone.

An additional hundred invites would be distributed randomly to women that entered the contest.

Tagssexist, Cyanogen, Contest, Publicity stunt, Smart Device, Android phones