This deep dive is our monthly love letter to the community. We keep it free for everyone because knowledge on commercial influence should be accessible.
The same old story again and again
When evidence of harms linked to corporate products, services, or practice emerges, businesses go on the offensive. They tell policymakers and the general public the same old story again and again, often contrary to the evidence, with the goal of delaying national policy action. Every day, month, and year that governments fail to meaningfully act means more profit at the expense of people and planet.
Here is how the tall tale goes.
1. “It’s not a problem. It’s totally normal. And it’s actually a good thing.”
Industries deny problems, fabricate uncertainty, and spin harms as benefits. In the 1900s, heavy industry popularized the word “accident” to deflect blame for workplace deaths, and automakers still use it to normalize road fatalities. The road lobby claims speed is liberating and not dangerous, fossil fuel advocates portray CO₂ as beneficial, and food and drink companies say sugar is “good.” McDonald’s says it provides “nutritious” meals because its food technically has nutrients in it and promotes “healthy lifestyles” because customers could walk in and order salads. These narratives obscure responsibility and delay policy action.
Image from: KC Green’s Gunshow (2013)
2. “The problem is so complex. Many factors contribute to it! Let’s work on all of those!”
A classic distraction tactic: overwhelm policymakers with multifactorial explanations. The tobacco industry has long argued that smoking-related diseases have many causes and many solutions. McDonald’s argued that obesity is caused by 100+ factors other than fast food. From sugar to fossil fuels, industries invoke complexity arguments to tie up public resources on solutions that don’t address root drivers and thus reduce political will for policies aiming to curtail harmful commercial practices.
3. “Fine, maybe sometimes harm happens, but we had no idea, we swear!”
Once harm is undeniable, industries claim ignorance. Yet, litigation or whistleblowing often proves both prior knowledge and cover up. By the time regulations catch up, companies make billions from harms. Johnson and Johnson knew by 1971 that its talc contained carcinogens. In the 1970s and 1980s, Dow and Shell knowingly failed to disclose pesticide toxicity that sterilized 1,500 Costa Rican workers. Asbestos, lead, and PCB manufacturers hid harms for decades while widely integrating the toxins into construction, consumer goods, and food. Recently, social media and rideshare companies failed to act on internal evidence of the dangers of people using their products and services.
4. “In any case, it harms only a few “problem” consumers. Don’t be the fun police and punish the rest of us.”
Industries spend fortunes to frame harms as the fault of a few “problem” consumers, like weak willed smokers, out of control drinkers, reckless drivers (a.k.a. “nuts behind the wheel”), and irresponsible gamblers, litterbugs, and jaywalkers. Companies make up and widely spread these cultural tropes to shift solutions to individual behavior, label critics the “fun police”, and shield industry from regulation. Chemical companies blame “pesticide misusers” not toxic products. Pharmaceutical giants blame problem users not addictive prescription drugs for the opioid crisis and past and present social media executives blame individuals not algorithms for the spread of hate and misinformation online. The financial industry blamed irresponsible borrowers for the 2008 financial crisis rather than their own predatory lending practices. This framing allows industries to claim that population-wide policies are unjust, like alcohol companies claiming that higher prices would be unfair to the majority of “responsible” drinkers.
5. “Consumers are ill informed. You really should just educate people. Here, use our educational materials!”
Commercial actors often claim education is better than regulation. They flood schools with programs like tobacco industry’s Right Decision Right Now, the gun lobby’s Eddie Eagle, and McDonald’s Healthy Lifestyles, as well as GambleAware, DrinkAware, and Petro-Pete. But in a marketplace saturated with harmful products, marketing, and incentives, education, labels, and information don’t significantly shift behavior. They do, however, distract from policies that work: cutting government subsidies to harmful industries and reducing availability, affordability, and advertising of harmful products. Instead, corporate “education” functions as industry marketing that often subtly encourages harmful behavior while shifting blame for harms to individuals.
6. “Trust us, we are the good guys! We’re experts. Let’s partner so we are part of the solution!”
Industries cast themselves as valuable partners looking out for the public good. The road lobby claims to represent “taxpayers” and “communities” rather than multibillion-dollar companies. The baby food industry claims expertise in infant nutrition to convince women formula is better than breastmilk. The fossil fuel industry says it leads the “green transition. Big Tech claims to care about privacy and wellbeing. Tobacco firms say they care about a smoke-free future to push vaping alternatives. Once embraced as “part of the solution” to the problems they help create, though, commercial actors introduce conflicts of interest and shape policy to protect profits.
7. “Don’t trust their scientists. They’re the bad guys. They’re emotional, biased, and incompetent!”
Industries discredit researchers to stall regulation. In the 1970s, the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) attacked Rachel Carson, labeling her as hysterical after she published her book Silent Spring that exposed DDT’s harms. When the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate, the world’s most used herbicide, as “probably carcinogenic” in 2015, Monsanto, glyphosate’s maker, and its agrichemical industry allies undermined the organisation and questioned its scientists’ integrity. In 2016, NFL officials attempted to discredit as biased the researcher leading NIH studies on football and brain disease. Most recently, the meat lobby unleashed harassment against the authors of the 2019 Eat Lancet Report that called for a 50% reduction in global meat consumption to battle climate change and unhealthy diets. Personal attacks on researchers sow confusion about evidence and help justify industry-aligned policies.
8. “No need to regulate, we’ll change on our own! Look how much we’ve done already, and all by ourselves!”
Researchers often cite the tobacco industry as the OG of the commercial-determinants playbook, but the tactics go way back. Pushing for self-regulation and voluntary standards is an old trick. In 1760s’ Britain, slave-trade groups tried to stall abolition by rebranding slaves as “assistant planters” and offering voluntary reforms like fewer people per ship and less whipping of women. Today, chemical companies, fossil fuel firms, plastic industry, Big Tech, food companies, and road lobbyists claim voluntary improvements suffice, yet harms multiply. Their “better products,” like diet sodas, e-cigarettes, and low alcohol drinks, open up new markets while harmful core business models grow. Industries’ voluntary fixes function to delay regulation.
9. “National policies won’t work! But they will hurt the economy, kill innovation and destroy jobs.”
Unhealthy commodity industries often insist (without evidence) that population-level policies won’t improve health or the environment but will devastate economies. Food and drink companies say healthier advertising policies will slash local government revenue. The alcohol industry claims higher prices disparage trade. The road lobby says emission reduction policies stifle innovation, competition, and choice. These arguments shift the policy debate from protecting people and planet to protecting profits.
10. “Plus, this regulation is totally government overreach! You don’t want to be the Nanny State that tramples people’s freedoms, do you?”
A perennial favorite: framing public health and environmental policy as infringing on personal freedoms. The tobacco industry painted public health advocates as bossy meddlers. The private health industry calls universal health insurance patronizing, Nanny State overreach. Big Tech says social media regulation threatens free speech and the firearm lobby frames gun-violence–prevention measures as attacks on constitutional rights. While public health must balance individual liberty with communal protection, corporations often weaponize the Nanny State trope to block policy. National regulations target harmful industry practices, not private freedoms, making the “Nanny State good for you” in many ways.
The deafening silence: what industries don’t say to get their way
Silence is as strategic as messaging. Corporations omit their role in creating harms, and hide their profit motives and political ideologies.
The automotive industry never mentions the contribution of fossil fuels, cars, and freight to greenhouse gasses. The gun lobby does not acknowledge that firearms are the leading cause of injury and death among America’s children and adolescents. Big Tech does not discuss the risks regulations pose to their profits.
Industries hide their ideological preference: a small state that leaves commercial operations unregulated but does subsidize business, build infrastructure, and absorb risks and costs.
The silence supports the other narrative strategies by obscuring the one true industry goal: protect profit at all costs.
The deception is the problem
The narrative playbook is one part of what researchers call “corporate political activity.” The problem is not with businesses arguing for their preferred policies per se. The issue is when the claims are based on deception, misleading scientific claims, and manufactured evidence to get desired outcomes.
Next week, we’ll dive into what can be done to effectively counter the problematic stories.
Which of these claims have you encountered in your work? Have you also encountered frames not included above?
Hit reply or drop a comment. We’d love to learn from your experience.
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Click on any of the links we cite above or check out these selected annotated reads:
By Grant Ennis in Daraja Press, 2023
A must-read for anyone looking to understand the arguments industries consistently make to shape public opinion and policy. Grant Ennis focuses on unhealthy food and drink, fossil fuel, and automotive and allied industries to show nine devious frames of the Dark PR narrative playbook. The book constantly reminds readers that the narratives always serve to distract from real causes and solutions to harmful commercial determinants. Ennis advocates for groups to collectively act to demand an end to corporate subsidies. If you only have bandwidth to read one book on this topic, let it be Dark PR.
By Selda Ulucanlar and 7 Colleagues in International Journal of Health Policy Management, 2023
This manuscript offers a taxonomy of narrative and action tactics businesses use to shape policy messaging and get it to those in power. The researchers developed their taxonomy by pouring over research on strategies used by unhealthy commodity industries (UCIs) such as tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and beverages, and gambling. This manuscript is a vital guide for knowing what to expect from industry pushback to anyone working on policies to protect people and planet.
By May van Schalkwyk and 3 Colleagues in Globalization & Health, 2025
This paper illustrates how the narratives that accompany corporate education programs work as both marketing and political influence tools of the industries involved. The authors dissect the language and framing used by the National Rifle Association (NRA), an influential organization that is a big part of the pro-gun lobby in the U.S. The researchers detail how NRA uses misleading evidence to make the case for its Eddie Eagle Gunsafe® program while subtly normalizing gun ownership and staying silent on firearms as the number one cause of deaths and injuries of the country’s children and adolescents.