<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/69fa712c577b9b06dabede21_cherrydeck-rmilc1piwm0-unsplash-69f32b532d683809663759.jpeg" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Growth</span> <h1 class="gn-title">What Brands Are Actually Deciding in a Chemistry Meeting (And Why Most Agencies Don&#39;t Know)</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>5 May 2026</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>6 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <p class="gn-lede gn-reveal">When a brand-side team sits down for a chemistry meeting, they're not primarily assessing capability. They already have a reasonable sense of your capability from your credentials and whatever research they've done before the room.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">What they're trying to answer is something harder to articulate and harder to fake: can we work with these people when it gets difficult?</p> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">01</span>What Brands Are Actually Trying to Find Out</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">We hear this consistently from the brand-side marketing leaders we work with. The chemistry meeting exists because capability is table stakes at this stage. Every agency on the shortlist can do the work. The question is which one they want to be in a room with at 5pm on a Friday when a campaign has gone sideways, a client stakeholder has changed their mind, or the brief has turned out to be wrong.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">That's what chemistry is. Not whether they liked you. Whether they trust that you'll be honest with them when honesty is inconvenient.</p> <aside class="gn-quote gn-reveal"><q>Agencies that understand this walk into chemistry meetings with a completely different posture. The ones that don't spend 45 minutes impressing people who already know they're capable.</q><cite>The GO Network · Editorial</cite></aside> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">02</span>Why Most Agencies Get It Wrong</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">The mistake is structural. Most agencies treat the chemistry meeting as a compressed credentials presentation. Show enough of the right work, introduce the right people, land the right talking points, and hope the room warms to you.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">This approach fails for two reasons.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">First, it's passive. The agency presents and the brand evaluates. That dynamic is exactly backwards for what chemistry is supposed to establish. A chemistry meeting where the agency does most of the talking is a chemistry meeting where the agency has misread the room.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Second, it answers the wrong question. Slides about past work tell a brand what you've done. They don't tell them what it's like to work with you. And what it's like to work with you is precisely what they're trying to figure out.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The agencies that win chemistry meetings tend to arrive with fewer slides and more questions. They're curious about the brand's situation in a way that feels genuine rather than pre-prepared. They share a perspective (a real one, not a rehearsed one) and they're willing to hold it even when it's challenged. They show what they're actually like, rather than performing a version of themselves they think the brand wants to see.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">That's what creates the feeling brands are looking for. Not polish. Credibility.</p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">03</span>What the Brand Is Watching For</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">From the conversations we have with brand-side teams after selection processes, a few things come up consistently as the signals that make a chemistry meeting work or fail.</p> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#01</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Whether the agency listens.</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Not politely waits to speak, but actually listens, picks up on what's said, and reflects it back in a way that shows they've understood. Agencies that arrive with a locked agenda and work through it regardless of what the brand says in the room are signalling exactly how they'll behave on the account.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#02</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Whether they have a genuine point of view.</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Brand teams don't want to work with agencies that agree with everything. They want to work with agencies that will push back when pushing back is right. A chemistry meeting where the agency never challenges anything, never offers an opinion that might be unpopular, never demonstrates independent thinking, is a meeting where the agency has made themselves safe and forgettable at the same time.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#03</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Whether the team in the room is the team on the account.</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">One of the most common frustrations brand-side contacts raise is the bait-and-switch: senior people at the chemistry meeting, junior team on the account. If the people in the room won't be the people doing the work, say so. The cover-up damages trust more than the truth.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#04</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Whether they're comfortable with uncertainty.</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">The best chemistry meetings involve some honest conversation about what the agency doesn't know yet, where they'd need more information, what they'd need to pressure-test before they could be confident.</p> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Agencies that project certainty about everything feel like they're performing. Agencies that are honest about the edges of their knowledge feel like partners.</p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">04</span>How to Prepare for the Right Meeting</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">The practical shift is away from presentation and toward conversation.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Before the meeting, the most valuable preparation isn't building slides. It's developing a genuine point of view on the brand's situation. What do you think is actually going on for them commercially? What would you push back on in their brief or their category? What have you noticed about how they show up in the market that they might not have noticed themselves?</p> <p class="gn-reveal">This isn't about showing off research. It's about arriving with something worth saying. Something that only you would say, because it comes from how you actually think.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">In the meeting itself, let the conversation lead. Have a loose structure, not a locked one. If something the brand says opens a more interesting thread than the one you planned, follow it. The ability to be genuinely present in a conversation is itself a signal of how you'll work.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Ask the questions that nobody else is likely to ask. Not the polite, expected questions about timeline and budget. The ones that show you've thought seriously about their situation. "What would make this relationship fail?" is a question most agencies never ask in a chemistry meeting. It's also the most useful one.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">And be honest about who you are. The agency that gets appointed after a chemistry meeting has to show up as that agency for the duration of the contract. Performing a version of yourselves you can't sustain is a short-term win with a long-term cost.</p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">05</span>The Shift That Changes Everything</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">Chemistry meetings exist because brands have learned, often the hard way, that capability and compatibility are different things. An agency can be genuinely talented and genuinely difficult to work with. The chemistry meeting is the tool they use to separate the two.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Agencies that understand this don't try to be likeable. They try to be trustworthy. They demonstrate, in a single meeting, that they're the kind of people a brand can be honest with, and who will be honest in return.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">That's what brands are deciding. Not "did we enjoy that?" but "could we work with them when it matters?"</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The agencies that answer that question well don't always have the best slides. They have the clearest sense of who they are.</p> <aside class="gn-callout gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-callout__label">What this means for you</div> <h4>Practical Takeaways</h4> <ul> <li><strong>The chemistry meeting is not an early pitch.</strong> Brands already know you can do the work. They're deciding whether they can trust you when things get hard.</li> <li><strong>Arrive with a point of view, not a presentation.</strong> Something genuinely worth saying about their brand or situation. Not a rehearsed talking point, but an actual perspective you're willing to hold under pressure.</li> <li><strong>Listen more than you present.</strong> The agency that does most of the talking in a chemistry meeting has misread what the meeting is for.</li> <li><strong>Be honest about the team.</strong> If the people in the room won't be the people on the account, say so. The gap between chemistry meeting and day-to-day account team is one of the most common sources of early client frustration.</li> <li><strong>Ask the question nobody else asks.</strong> "What would make this relationship fail?" tells you more about the client and tells them more about you than any slide deck will.</li> </ul> </aside> </div></div>