奶粉 / Milk Powder

Author: Dexin Kong
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3831-5725
Structured and refined with assistance from ChatGPT
AI Automatic Translation (Unreviewed)

Event

In 2025, there was a public controversy that was neither particularly large nor particularly small.

It began when many elderly people spent the savings of half a lifetime buying milk powder from a newly emerging brand. It seemed like a typical case of “deceptive marketing.”

Family members were furious. Some filed complaints with regulators, some reported the matter to the police, and some even tried to bring lawsuits through the courts.

However, as more reports gradually surfaced, the situation started to feel somewhat strange.

The milk powder itself did not appear to involve obvious false advertising. The products were properly certified, and most of the elderly buyers also clearly understood the product’s functions and intended use.

As the whole incident slowly came to light, people gradually learned about the company’s marketing approach.

They first hired a large number of young people to regularly call elderly individuals and chat with them.

At the beginning, they did not promote milk powder at all.

They simply talked.

They talked about everyday life, the weather, work, and small things happening in daily life, calling once every few days.

As familiarity slowly developed, usually after one or two months, the conversations gradually became more personal, almost like those between close relatives or family friends.

Then, these “outside family members” began to “complain” to the elderly.

Some said their work performance had been poor lately and they might soon lose their jobs.

Some said they had helped friends purchase a batch of milk powder, only to end up stuck with unsold inventory.

Some said the elderly person’s own children did not care enough about their health and would not even buy them nutritional supplements.

There were all kinds of stories.

All of them sounded like the kind of “complaints” that come from “family.”

As a result, many elderly people began voluntarily purchasing the milk powder.

Later, it escalated into buying box after box. Some people spent all of their savings, until milk powder filled entire rooms.

Only later did people gradually realize that these elderly individuals, who had already lived through half a lifetime of hardship and experience, had actually understood all along:

the milk powder was not really what they were paying for.

Note:
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Because of limited time and maintenance capacity,
English documents may contain translation inaccuracies or semantic deviations from the original Chinese texts.
The Chinese version remains the primary reference whenever ambiguity exists.