When a non-existent psychologist is quoted in Vogue, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, the BBC and The Sun, among countless other titles, it’s easy to dismiss it as a consumer media problem, far from the stability of B2B trade press. But it won’t stay there.
An investigation by Press Gazette found that ‘Barbara Santini’, an apparently Oxford-educated psychologist had been quoted in over 100 media stories in some of the world’s largest publications.
The only problem – Barbara Santini doesn’t exist.
There was no interview, no credentials, no real person. Just a fake name, a fabricated bio, and AI-written commentary. As a result, journalists are now tightening the net, verifying sources, digging deeper into bios, and pushing back against anything that smells like synthetic slop.
While this particular scandal played out in mainstream consumer titles, the same tactics could eventually surface in B2B trade press especially with media teams under pressure to turn around copy fast.
That’s a problem for the industry, but it’s also an important opportunity. When the bar for credibility rises, real expertise starts cutting through like never before.
In the print and packaging sector, complexity is the norm and credibility is everything. Regulatory pressures, material innovations, sustainability targets, supply chain claims, none of it can be communicated with vague marketing gloss or surface-level soundbites. It needs depth and nuance.
While some generalist marketing, PR or content agencies might struggle to translate technical expertise into targeted and commercially valuable narratives, we don’t. At Think B2B, we have spent more than a decade embedded in the language, the context, and the expectations of the industry. We know when something’s genuinely interesting, and we know how to write about it in a way that earns trust, attention, and action.
Journalists aren’t stupid - and neither are your customers
Let’s be clear: journalists are not gullible. The rise of AI-generated ‘experts’ isn’t down to laziness or naivety, it’s the result of a system under pressure where comment quotas, turnaround times, and platform demands are tighter than ever.
Some opportunist PR outfits have taken advantage of that, but journalists are pushing back. They’re vetting contributors and checking qualifications, and they can tell when they’re reading copy generated by a large language model (LLM), not a real person with real industry knowledge. AI can regurgitate general information. What it can’t do is give insight.
The same goes for your buyers. AI-written content might be quick, but it all ends up sounding the same. Generic, safe and ultimately hollow. The kind of copy you skim, forget, and never go back to. And that’s the inherent risk; your website, your thought leadership, your blog, all of it starts blending into a homogenous soup of sameness.
And in B2B, where purchasing decisions are complex, technical, and high-stakes, bland content doesn’t just underwhelm, it damages trust.
Lead with expertise
Whether you’re a lean in-house team that needs a partner to take the reins – setting the content strategy, defining the angles, and identifying the pressure points – or you’ve already got a detailed multi-channel plan and know exactly what you want to say and to who, we make it happen. At Think B2B, we’re used to both ends of the spectrum.
That’s why we spend so much time talking to technical experts. As one of the most trusted marketing partners in the global print and packaging industry, we work with key technical teams to translate complex ideas into compelling market-ready messages.
One of the biggest advantages for our clients is that we don’t need to be spoon-fed the basics. We’re not asking you what a print technician does, we’re asking how your newest flexo plate is addressing dot gain. We’re asking what your MIS-integrated digital workflows are doing for machine uptime. We’re asking about the recyclability of a given substrate in the context of PPWR.
That means we get to the real insights faster; the opinions, the nuances, and the lived experience of your team. The kind of content that lands in front of a potential customer or journalist and makes them think: “Alright. These people know what they’re talking about.” That’s not something AI can fake.
If you’re a business with serious expertise – regulatory, scientific, operational or environmental – that expertise should be out there, quoted, published, indexed and referenced. When the content ecosystem is flooded with fake voices, the businesses putting real people forward will stand out by a mile. Every business has a story to tell, so trust Think B2B Marketing to tell it right.
The EEAT effect, and why your site’s visibility is on the line
Google knows what’s happening with AI content, and it’s adapting. Search algorithms are now tuned to prioritise EEAT principles: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
That means your site is being judged on who’s writing your content, what else they’ve been quoted in, whether their profile matches their subject matter, and whether what they’re saying is credible.
Fake authors, AI-generated bios, or anonymous blog content? That’s being penalised, which means if your current content strategy is leaning heavily on high-volume blog posts, rapid-fire AI copy, or unverified commentary, you might be killing your own search visibility, even if the content technically reads okay.
You’ve got experts - put them in the spotlight
If you’re in packaging, print, biotech, life sciences, or technical manufacturing, you already have experts.
They’re your lab managers. Your colour management specialists. Your production heads. Your regulatory leads. Your sustainability officers.
They’re not ‘thought leaders’ in the fluffy LinkedIn sense, they’re the ones who know how your business and industry actually work. With the right team behind them, they can become your biggest marketing asset.
That’s what we do at Think B2B Marketing. We take those expert voices, amplify and adapt them into:
- Trade press features with real insight
- Journalistic commentary
- SEO content with weight
- LinkedIn posts that actually say something
- Web copy that builds authority, not just traffic
We deliver sharp, strategic content that builds trust where it counts. In this new media landscape, being real is your unfair advantage.
To learn more about Think B2B Marketing and its activities, please visit www.ThinkB2BMarketing.com.
