How does media influence trust in an industry where deals are still heavily driven by personal relationships and reputation?

In B2B, trust rarely begins inside the sales meeting. By the time two people sit across from one another, they have usually already formed an initial judgement through media coverage, executive interviews, mutual connections, conference appearances and the accumulation of names they repeatedly encounter across the industry.

This creates a contradiction: iGaming still describes itself as a relationship-driven industry, but those relationships are not formed on equal terms. Media visibility increasingly determines who is recognised, who is perceived as credible and who is considered worth meeting before any personal relationship has the opportunity to develop.

The media therefore does more than generate awareness. It creates the context in which companies and individuals are evaluated. It can reduce uncertainty, transfer credibility and make expertise visible, but it can also amplify familiar voices until recognition itself is mistaken for competence.

The deeper question is not simply whether media creates trust, but how it influences the evidence we use to decide whom to trust and whether the industry can still distinguish genuine authority from authority produced through repetition, access and visibility.

Does the media determine who is considered credible enough to meet?

Alessia Smirnova

I'd say yes, largely. In iGaming, media coverage functions as a credibility filter — it shapes who gets taken seriously enough to sit across the table from regulators, investors, or potential partners.

We all tend to check what's been written about a company in the major industry publications, look up their LinkedIn presence, and so on — we need some ground to stand on before trusting someone. That's one of the main reasons media companies exist and prosper, and why PR managers invest so heavily in building relationships with them, with companies putting real budget behind it.

There's actually a psychological explanation for this. Our brain interprets the familiar as safe and the unfamiliar as a potential threat. That trust is often an automatic, emotional, unconscious response driven by cognitive bias — not a logical evaluation of quality. It's the brain's way of conserving energy and avoiding the discomfort of uncertainty. It's called the mere exposure effect: the more you hear about something, the more you unconsciously start to like it.

What happens to technically excellent companies whose C-suite is invisible?

Kristina Rajzer

They often remain technically excellent and commercially underestimated.

They do not necessarily fail, but they often grow more slowly, pay more to build trust and lose opportunities to competitors that are easier for the market to recognise.

In B2B, technical quality is rarely obvious before implementation. Buyers cannot fully evaluate a platform, payment solution or compliance product through a website or sales presentation, so they rely on external signals: who recommends the company, which respected people, media outlets and businesses are willing to associate with it, and whether the market already recognises the names behind it.

That does not mean every founder must become a LinkedIn celebrity. The visible authority could be anyone from the C-suite, a product leader or another senior expert capable of translating the company’s expertise into a credible industry position. The important point is that someone must give the business a recognisable voice, because people can evaluate how a person thinks far more easily than they can build a relationship with a logo posting another “We are delighted to announce.”

Research from Google and Bain found that 92% of B2B buyers already have a shortlist of preferred vendors before beginning the buying process. Without that human presence, the sales team carries the entire burden of credibility into every conversation. It must repeatedly explain who the company is, why it matters and why choosing it is a commercially safe decision. Meanwhile, a more visible competitor may enter the same conversation with part of that trust already established.

Visibility cannot compensate for a weak product indefinitely, but technical excellence without proper market visibility strategy creates a different commercial problem: the company may be perfectly capable of delivering value and still never make the buyer’s shortlist.

How much industry authority is earned, and how much is distributed by gatekeepers?
Alessia Smirnova

I'd say it's both, and the honest answer is that the two are hard to separate. Authority has to be built on something real — expertise, results, a track record — but the mechanism by which that authority becomes visible and recognized runs almost entirely through gatekeepers.

Who decides which voices become recognised industry authorities?
Kristina Rajzer

Industry authority is earned through expertise, but recognition is distributed through access.

Editors decide whom to publish, event organisers decide whom to place on stage, companies decide which executives to promote, and professional networks amplify the people already known within them. Together, these gatekeepers create the shortlist of voices the industry repeatedly sees and repetition itself becomes a form of validation.

This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: people are invited because they are visible, and each invitation makes them appear more authoritative. One interview leads to a speaking opportunity, the speaking opportunity produces more media coverage, and that coverage becomes evidence for the next invitation. Eventually, the industry may confuse frequency of exposure with depth of expertise.

Meanwhile, some of the most knowledgeable people remain invisible because they lack media access, work behind the scenes or simply do not communicate their expertise publicly. Their knowledge may be stronger, but authority that cannot be observed is difficult for the market to recognise.

The real question, therefore, is not only whether someone is visible, but what survives behind that visibility. Can they explain the reasoning behind their position, connect it to evidence or operational experience, identify the commercial incentives involved and acknowledge the trade-offs? Can their thinking withstand disagreement, or does it only sound convincing when nobody challenges it?

The media determines whose expertise becomes visible enough to enter the public conversation. The industry then reinforces those voices through attention, invitations and social proof but repeated recognition should not be mistaken for independent verification. Sometimes the industry is validating expertise; sometimes it is simply validating its own previous choices.

How does a company benefit differently from its own corporate PR versus from its executives building personal brands?
Alessia Smirnova

The two build different assets, and a company that only invests in one is leaving something on the table.

Corporate PR builds trust in the entity — media coverage and owned content that prove the company is real and credible on its own, without depending on any one person. It's stable, cumulative, and stays with the company no matter who leaves.

Executive personal branding builds trust in a human, which the company borrows. People trust people faster than institutions — especially in a sector like iGaming. 

The real difference is durability: corporate PR compounds for the company forever; personal brand equity compounds for the person, and the company only benefits while they stay.

How does the media influence the trust level?
Kristina Rajzer

Media influences trust by shaping the context in which information about a company is interpreted.

The same commercial claim creates a different reaction depending on where it appears and who communicates it. When a company describes itself as reliable, innovative or compliant, buyers understand the commercial incentive behind the message and naturally treat it with some scepticism. When the same competence is examined or supported by a credible publication, client or recognised industry expert, the claim carries more weight because it appears to have passed through an external filter.

Repetition adds another psychological layer. Through the mere exposure effect, repeated encounters with the same company, executive or idea create familiarity, and the brain often interprets familiarity as safety. The illusory truth effect goes further: when a message is repeated frequently, it becomes easier to process and may begin to feel more credible, even when no new evidence has been introduced. This means media visibility can influence trust not only through what is communicated, but through how often the audience encounters it.

However, the media does not build trust only through positive exposure. It also creates a public record against which a company’s behaviour can be assessed. Buyers can compare what the business promised with what it delivered, observe how its leadership responds to difficult questions and identify whether its positioning remains consistent over time. Trust develops when these signals support one another; it weakens when the company’s claims, actions and reputation begin to contradict each other.

The media does not decide whether a company is trustworthy. It creates, selects and repeatedly distributes the information from which the market makes that decision. Sometimes it helps the audience recognise genuine credibility; sometimes it simply makes familiarity feel like evidence.

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Media and personal relationships are not competing sources of trust; they are different layers of the same decision-making process.

Media creates the initial frame. It determines which companies are visible, which executives are recognised and what information is available before direct contact begins. Personal interaction then tests whether that public credibility survives a private conversation, while behaviour, delivery and commercial results determine whether provisional trust becomes earned trust.

This is why corporate PR and executive visibility should not be treated as separate vanity exercises. Corporate communication builds an institutional record around the business, while visible experts make its competence easier to observe, understand and remember. Together, they reduce uncertainty and help the company enter the buyer’s consideration set but neither can compensate indefinitely for weak delivery.

The danger appears when familiarity is treated as proof, repeated visibility is mistaken for expertise and media exposure is assumed to be independent validation. A familiar company may still be the wrong supplier, just as an invisible company may be technically superior and commercially overlooked.

Media does not replace reputation, relationships or results. It influences who receives the opportunity to build them and in a market where buyers often form their shortlist before speaking to sales, that opportunity may be one of the most commercially valuable assets a company has.

Authors:

Alessia Smirnova
Senior Business Development Manager at Notix.games

Kristina Rajzer
Commercial Director at ChargeForwards