crumb#010: The Dark Side of Good Storytelling and the Business of Selling Trust

How Two Global Corporations Used Marketing Narratives to Create Crises in Africa and the US

Jul 26, 2025

Storytelling is an art unlike any other, with the power to bring about changes that otherwise might seem impossible to achieve. The astonishing power of good storytelling percolates every odd nook and corner of our daily lives. It is the fabric on which our society is built and the medium through which we have evolved. From getting rid of the Neanderthals, to appointing the leaders of the biggest nations of the world, storytelling is as ubiquitous as society itself. Every religion, movement, or business that has been successful has been down to someone who not only had a dream, but also had the ability to convince others to join in on that dream. From Muhammad, to MLK, to Steve Jobs- good storytellers shape the world in ways that material things can’t.

Even in smaller, less cut-throat places like a bonfire with friends, there’s no one better to have around than someone who can capture your attention, grab a hold of your breath, and have you following even their tiniest movements as they narrate the breathtaking story of how they tied their shoelaces the other day. I mean that’s the beauty of storytelling. Making simple things enrapturing. Captivating. Removing the mundane from the mundane.

That person might only be topped by an acoustic guitar player with shoulder-length hair and a chiselled jaw as he sings the chorus to a heartbreak song and has everyone reeled in. If you think about it, however, he is also telling a story that everyone can relate to and connect with- just in a different manner and format.

Human beings can be divided into two neatly separate parts if you ask me. The gullible, and those who feed upon it. Remember the salesman who used to turn up at your door during every summer vacation trying to sell you their latest edition of a life-changing encyclopaedia set that had answers to everything, and changed lives the moment it was bought? And remember the little boy who used to come up with a hundred different reasons to convince his dad how this encyclopaedia was just what was required to get that elusive A grade in history, science, and everything else even though he hardly even read the already available textbooks that cost a fraction of the price? Can safely say, the only time that encyclopaedia gets opened is in the first hour of the first day it is bought. I am that kid after all. And that was enough for the salesman. And an innocent story to tell.

But here’s the thing: storytelling isn’t always innocent.

Sometimes, it’s a weapon.

What happens when the stakes are life and death? What happens when the storytellers aren’t selling books, but dreams of safety, healing, and hope- while hiding the truth? When the lives of other people mean nothing more than mere statistics to them- numbers on a spreadsheet.

This crumb looks at that kind of story. The dangerous kind. The manipulative kind. The kind where storytelling, branding, and marketing don’t just sell a product- but rewrite public health, reshape whole communities, and quietly devastate lives.

Two stories. Two continents. One truth: storytelling, when wielded without conscience, can become a slow, seductive poison.

This crumb is also a bit different than the others. Since this is a piece about storytelling, it only feels right to narrate it like a story. Not a neat blog post; something with scenes. With buildups. Think of it like a Shakespeare play- acts, characters, rising tension, and a long, slow unraveling. Except no one gets stabbed on stage. Well, metaphorically, maybe.

We’re going to follow two stories. One begins in a maternity ward in East Africa. The other, in a slick boardroom in Connecticut. They’re not the same, not entirely. But they resonate. And by the time you’re done reading this piece, you’ll see how the same tricks- good lighting, big promises, and the right choice of words- can sell just about anything.

ACT I: THE SEDUCTION

Scene One: Nairobi, early 1980s

A young mother steps out of a health clinic holding a free tin of baby formula.

She’s just given birth. She’s tired. A little unsure. The woman who gave her the tin was wearing a nurse’s coat- she seemed legit. She told her this stuff was modern. Scientific. What people used in America. And that breastfeeding was old-fashioned, even risky in places like this.

She said formula was cleaner and safer. Better for the baby.

The new mother doesn’t have much. But this feels like a step toward something better. So she takes the tin home. And starts using it.

What she doesn’t realise is that her breast milk is going to dry up in a few weeks. Which means she’ll now need to keep buying the formula.

Which means she’ll start stretching the powder- making it last longer. Adding more water than she should. Often, not clean water.

Which means her baby, who was supposed to be safer now, is going to start getting sick.

But no one’s told her that part of the story.

Scene Two: Stamford, Connecticut, 1996

A boardroom, this time. Less sweat, more spreadsheets.

Purdue Pharma is about to launch what it believes is the blockbuster drug of the decade: OxyContin. A powerful painkiller, but with a controlled-release coating that, according to their data, makes it practically non-addictive.

Or at least, that’s what they’re going to tell the doctors. Repeatedly.

They’ve come up with the pitch. They’ve got the reps.

All that’s left now is to get it out there and start selling.

They begin flooding clinics and conferences with speaker events and sales brochures.

Pain, they say, is the most overlooked medical crisis in America. Millions are suffering in silence.

But there’s good news- there’s a solution.

And that solution, of course, comes in a little orange bottle.

Scene Three: The Setup

Different continents. Different decades. But the stories being told are strangely familiar.

Nestlé told young mothers they were doing the right thing. The modern thing.

Purdue told doctors they were treating pain responsibly. Giving people their lives back.

Both sounded reasonable. Both came wrapped in science and certainty and a sense of progress.

And both were about to spiral into something much darker.

ACT II: THE BUILD-UP

Scene One: When Nurses Become Salespeople

Here’s something strange that happened in parts of Africa and South Asia back in the '70s and '80s:

You’d walk into a maternity clinic, and the woman in the white coat advising you on how to feed your newborn wasn’t always a nurse.

She just looked like one.

Sometimes, she was actually a Nestlé sales rep- paid to hand out free samples of formula, often right after birth, when a new mother was still dazed and unsure. The idea was simple: give just enough formula so that by the time the free stuff runs out, the mother’s breast milk has dried up. Then? She’ll have to keep buying.

This wasn’t just sales. It was long-game marketing dressed up as medical advice.

In many places, the idea of “modernity” was carefully baked into every message- if you wanted the best for your baby, if you wanted to be aspirational, this was it.

Forget the breast. The future was canned.

And yes, the water used to mix the powder often wasn’t clean. Yes, mothers diluted it to make it last. Yes, malnutrition rates spiked. But none of that made it into the glossy pamphlets.

You don’t lead with the fine print when you’re selling hope.

Scene Two: The Pain Was Real. The Plan Was Slicker

Meanwhile, in the United States, Purdue was doing something uncannily similar- just with a different target.

Doctors.

They started turning up at medical conferences with sponsored booths, taking physicians out for dinners, flying them in for seminars.

Not just to talk about OxyContin, but to reframe the entire conversation around pain.

“Pain is the fifth vital sign,” they said. It’s under-diagnosed, under-treated, misunderstood.

And now, finally, there’s a fix.

They handed out brochures that said the risk of addiction was less than 1%. Cited one letter to the editor in a medical journal like it was gospel.

Doctors believed them. Why wouldn’t they? The science looked convincing. The reps seemed informed. And patients really were in pain.

So Oxy prescriptions skyrocketed.

And Purdue started raking in billions.

Scene Three: Storytelling as Strategy

In both cases, what’s fascinating- if you can stomach the horror- is how calculated the storytelling became.

Nestlé didn’t just advertise on TV. They tailored messaging for different regions, shaped cultural narratives, and used medical authority to legitimise their product.

Purdue didn’t just run ads. They used consultancy firms like McKinsey to figure out how to “turbocharge” sales. One internal doc even proposed targeting high-prescribing doctors with “aggressive messaging.”

The playbook was simple:

Make it sound like care.
Make it look like science.
Keep the tone calm, confident, professional.
Get ahead of the critics.

These weren’t companies selling crack in alleyways. These were Fortune 500 giants selling “solutions” in daylight, at scale, with taglines and TED talks.

Scene Four: No One Thinks They’re the Villain

This is the part of the movie where the camera lingers a little longer on the smiling exec.

The one who just closed a massive quarterly deal. Or the marketing head who’s showing off a new awareness campaign with mothers laughing and babies bouncing on clean white beds.

They probably sleep just fine.

Because that’s the magic of storytelling:

When you believe your own narrative, the mirror stops arguing back.

ACT III: THE COLLAPSE

Scene One: The Silence After the Sale

In some villages across Sub-Saharan Africa, hospitals began to notice an odd pattern.

Mothers who were once breastfeeding stopped. Babies who had been healthy were falling ill. Diarrhoea. Infections. Weight loss.

The common link? Formula.

Not because formula itself is evil, but because of how it was used- and more importantly, how it was sold.

Water wasn’t always clean. The powder was often diluted. Instructions weren’t always followed, or even readable. But Nestlé’s marketing hadn’t accounted for that. It had focused on the dream: modernity, health, control.

And when the reality turned into hunger and malnourishment?

Well, there wasn’t much of a refund policy on that dream.

By the early '90s, the World Health Organisation had made it plain: an estimated 1.5 million infant deaths globally could be linked to the improper use of formula in the developing world.

Nestlé’s defense? “We never told anyone to use dirty water.”

Wow.

Just wow.

Scene Two: Appalachia’s Pharmacies Run Dry

Across the Atlantic, in sleepy towns from West Virginia to Ohio, pharmacists were watching their shelves empty faster than they could restock.

People were lining up- not just the elderly with arthritis or the post-op patients- but teenagers.

Young men. Women in their twenties. People who, not long ago, were just nursing a sore back or a sports injury.

OxyContin, meant to last 12 hours, was being crushed and snorted.

Injected. Shared. Sold.

Addiction wasn’t theoretical anymore. It was happening- fast, and everywhere.

Doctors began to pull back. Whispers of overprescription turned into lawsuits. Families started showing up at town halls with photos of kids who’d overdosed.

And Purdue? Purdue doubled down.

They pushed higher dosages. Sent reps to reassure worried doctors. McKinsey recommended they “focus on selling more Oxy to the most prolific prescribers.”

By 2010, the numbers were sickening. In the US, more than 230,000 people had died from prescription opioid overdoses. And this wasn’t even the peak.

Scene Three: How Do You Apologise for a Body Count?

There’s no elegant PR campaign for this part.

Nestlé faced international backlash. Protests. Boycotts. A WHO code was introduced in 1981 to curb the aggressive marketing of formula- but it wasn’t legally binding. Many countries ignored it. Nestlé eventually promised to follow the rules. Their marketing got softer. Less direct. More “nutritional institute” and less “free sample from the fake nurse.”

But in many parts of the world, the damage was already done.

People don’t always recover from a broken story.

As for Purdue- well, they got hit too. Lawsuits piled up. Investigations grew teeth. In 2020, the company pleaded guilty to federal charges. The Sackler family paid $6 billion in settlements- but admitted no wrongdoing.

No one went to jail.

No one lost a yacht.

Instead, Purdue was restructured

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ACT IV: THE RECKONING

Scene One: The Stories We Bought

Both stories began the same way: with a pitch.

A promise of a better life. A cleaner, more advanced way to feed your baby. A miracle cure for pain.

What followed were taglines, glossy brochures, confident men in suits, and soothing voices that said: trust us.

And for a while, we did.

Because that’s what good storytelling does- it makes you want to believe. It packages complicated things into clear choices. It uses emotion where data won’t do.

And when it’s really good, it doesn’t feel like marketing at all.

It feels like common sense.

It feels like hope.

Scene Two: The Puppet Strings

Here’s the thing. Storytelling isn’t just about telling tales anymore- it’s a billion-dollar science.

Nestlé had entire teams devoted to product placement in hospitals and clinics.

Purdue had McKinsey consultants helping them identify “high-opportunity” regions- places with economic despair, lots of injury-prone jobs, and not a lot of oversight.

They weren’t just reacting to demand. They were creating it.

That’s the part most people miss.

They didn’t wait for the world to ask for their product.

They created a world where their product made perfect sense.

Scene Three: The Price of Belief

What do you call a story that kills?

In literature, it’s a tragedy. In business, it’s just a legal settlement.

Nestlé is still one of the biggest food companies in the world.

The Sacklers, despite the billions in fines, are still billionaires.

The fallout from both stories is still playing out- in addiction clinics, in overcrowded hospitals, in parents who look at baby formula with suspicion, and in people who treat pain but trust no one anymore.

Meanwhile, the consultants move on to the next client.

The marketers find the next narrative.

And the cycle resets.

Scene Four: The Mirror

I think about all this sometimes when I’m walking through a pharmacy aisle or scrolling past a sleek product launch on YouTube.

The slogans are cleaner now. More inclusive. More ethical. But the technique? Still the same.

Find the fear. Promise relief. Tell a story no one wants to question.

We like to think we’re smarter now. More skeptical. Less likely to be fooled.

But deep down, most of us are still just looking for someone to tell us a good story.

Something to believe in.

Something that feels like progress.

And as long as that need exists, there’ll be someone clever enough- and ruthless enough- to sell it back to us.

EPILOGUE

It was about a year ago, over a regular office lunch, that this story first found me. We were chatting about what we were watching- something light, something fun. I was going on about Ted Lasso, the optimism, the biscuits, the banter. That’s when my manager, mid-bite, mentioned Painkiller, a fairly recent Netflix show. He had just finished it and described the plot with such clarity and force that after just two lines, I was completely sold. That’s how I first heard about the Purdue Pharma story.

Another year passed. I was on a morning walk around the lake with a close friend- someone with a rare gift for storytelling. At the time, he was deep into prep for higher studies in law and often peppered our walks with courtroom dramas and real-world case studies. That morning, he told me about Nestlé and their baby formula scandal in Africa. He spoke about legal loopholes, unethical marketing, and the staggering consequences. As he painted the picture, it struck me how eerily similar it all sounded to Purdue. Different continents. Different decades. Different products. But the same old script.

That’s when I knew this story had to be told. Ten articles into my writing journey, this one felt different- one that had been simmering for far too long, looking for release. And as I began to think about how to tell it, my mind kept circling back to Much Ado About Nothing, the Shakespeare play we studied in school. At the time, I remember being fascinated by how so much chaos, comedy, and confrontation could be born from misunderstandings, deception, and performance. Everyone wore a mask. Everyone played a part. And beneath all the jest and charm, darker truths quietly brewed.

It struck me that this story was, in its own way, a modern tragedy dressed as business. It had its heroes and villains, its dramatic irony, its turning points, and most of all, its masks. The charm of well-packaged ads. The performance of public concern. The manipulation hidden beneath soft music, warm smiles, and clinical branding. It wasn’t just that storytelling was central to these scandals- it was that these entire operations were built on narrative. Not the truth, but a well-scripted illusion of it.

That’s why I chose to write this piece as if it were a play. Structured in acts, unfolding in scenes. Because storytelling isn’t just the subject here- it’s the stage, the spotlight, and sometimes, the weapon, and I wanted to use it like one here. And Much Ado About Nothing felt like the perfect compass. A story where words carry more weight than swords, and perception holds more power than reality. This too, I realised, is a story full of much ado- only, it's anything but nothing.

The thing is, we forget. Not out of malice, not even out of ignorance- just out of sheer momentum. Life moves forward, and with it, so do we. These horrifying chapters of corporate cruelty and manufactured trust don’t live in our minds- they live in Netflix thumbnails, morning conversations, and forgotten news archives. They resurface when someone mentions a show, or a walk gets unusually quiet.

And that’s what makes storytelling so beautiful. So dangerous. It’s not just a way to remember- it’s also a way to forget. The same tools that build heroes can excuse villains. The same words that inspire can also deceive. And that’s why stories matter. Because in the end, history doesn’t survive through headlines or lawsuits. It survives through the people who tell it- and those who listen.

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