While brilliant ads don’t come along all the time, when a campaign does strike a chord it can be tricky to put your finger on exactly why it caught your attention in the first place. It could be off the back of a clever piece of strategic insight, or perhaps a particularly engaging creative execution – but the best ads are often the result of both.

As chief strategy officer and chief creative officer of adam&eveDDB, Martin Beverley and Richard Brim have been behind some of the most emotive, amusing and memorable ads of the last few years. Brim joined the agency in 2013, making his mark with campaigns such as John Lewis’ Monty the Penguin Christmas ad, before being promoted to ECD and subsequently CCO. Previously at Wieden + Kennedy, Beverley was originally brought in as planning partner in 2015, and has since worked his way up to CSO.

“I got my tour of the agency when I joined and Rick wasn’t there, but there was this massive bucket of awards, which looked like he didn’t care about them because it was just like a container,” says Beverley. “We had a Lebanese lunch about two or three weeks in, and I immediately thought we’ll get along all right.”