“You Can’t Build Chemistry Over Wi-Fi”

Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe you can’t beat a good face-to-face meeting. It’s where trust is built, relationships develop faster, ideas land better, decisions get made and the real conversations go deeper. Video calls are efficient. But chemistry? That only happens in person.

Yes, Zoom is great. It’s saved us all a fortune in travel, long hours and dry cleaning. But here’s the truth: you can’t read the room on a video call. You can’t sense the energy, feel the pace, or clock who’s glancing at whom when you say something bold. Zoom is fine for a catch-up or a project check-in – but not when you’re pitching. When you’re trying to show someone, you get them, that you care, that you’re the kind of people they want in their corner when things go sideways? Then you need to show up. Literally.

At Beach, we work with clients across the globe – from Japan to the US, and all across Europe. Hopping on a plane is nothing new for us. It’s how we build proper relationships, and it’s how we do our best work. We thrive in rooms with real people, big whiteboards, coffee-fuelled ideas and sharpies being fought over. Creativity isn’t a solo sport. It needs friction. It needs energy. It needs humans in a room, bouncing ideas off each other, challenging and pushing each other to go further. That’s where the good stuff lives.

We were recently invited to pitch for a B2B marketing campaign for a global HVAC manufacturer. It was us, another UK agency, and two German agencies. The others pitched online. We booked flights to Paris.

Yes, it cost us more. Yes, it took more time. Yes, we were tired at the end of it. But the client didn’t expect it – and that’s exactly why it mattered. They were surprised, in a good way. You could see it: “Oh, you actually came?” That simple gesture said everything we needed it to. We care. We’re serious. We’ve invested.

Did it give us the edge? I hope so. As long as your work’s great – and ours is – then the chemistry, the intent, and the connection matter. After the pitch, we went out for lunch. A proper one, as only the French still do. Delicious noodles and no laptops. It was an opportunity to get to know one another on a personal level that I’m grateful for. We talked about family, holidays, football, children. We laughed. We connected. At the end, we left on a positive note – a farewell felt sincere.

And that, to me, is what business should feel like. Yes, it’s about delivering outstanding work. But it’s also about relationships, shared values, and enjoying the process. You don’t get that from a 45-minute Teams call where half the cameras are off and someone’s dog is barking in the background.

Look, we embrace hybrid. We’re not luddites – we’re global, after all. But when the stakes are high – when you want the pitch to stick and the work to sing – you can’t beat the magic of being in the room.

At Beach, we’ll keep turning up. Not because it’s nostalgic or nice—but because it connects us. Because being in the room still counts. It shows commitment. It sparks better ideas. It builds relationships that last longer than a campaign cycle. So yes, we’ll keep hopping on planes, sharing stories over lunch, scribbling on whiteboards, and shaking hands at the end of a great meeting. Because that’s where the magic happens—that’s why we do what we do and that’s how great work gets made.