From an agency which began as a facilitator for other agencies to a business that chases clients in their own right, Adept's evolution over the last decade has been fraught with fear. But as with any agency, be it Cawley Nea, who like Adept started up around the same time and transmogrified into a major TBWA offshoot, shifts happen.

Both Goodbody and van der Lee came from agencies. Goodbody, a copywriter, was with McConnells, DDFH&B, The Helme Partnership (now Grey Helme) and QMP (now Publicis QMP), while van der Lee was an art director in Peter Owens (Owens DDB).

van der Lee said the Adept start-up was timely and could have been done earlier.

“It was 1995,” van der Lee recalls, “and Owens was finding it harder and harder to keep all the government accounts they had. The axe was falling and apparently it was falling all around me, which was kind of scary, so it was a question of 'do I do something about it?' or 'do I wait until I have to do something about it?'

“Denis and I had been mates for aeons. We had travelled together and he started his career in advertising probably 'cause I suggested it (Goodbody interjects: “I wanted to write a book and he said I should be a copywriter and I said 'what's that?'”).

So we met in O'Brien's pub on Leeson Street – where most agencies start – and we agreed…”

Goodbody had had a strange week at QMP. “The late Charlie McDonnell used to take a break from rehearsing his amateur dramatics and come in and ask how things were for me. He said that he would be retiring in four years or so and there was a seat on the board for me. But to be honest the thought of being four years in another agency…

“It was another world. The first day I went in there, the toilet didn't work. It was the closest I've come to having a creative tantrum. Then someone – who I won't name – asked me to set up an agency and luckily no, as he ended up in court with other people. Adrian asked me to join up with him, or otherwise he would go find someone else.”

QMP was trying to get things together and shape itself for what emerged would be much better days ahead. They relied a lot then on Mars but the creative and strategic offer needed attention.

Interesting times, as van der Lee recalls. While Owens was going through a rough patch, they had just pitched for Tourism Brand Ireland and they won it.

Adept? The idea behind it was like the Trojan horse. Ad agencies had creative overspill at the time and new agencies like The Larkin Partnership, Cawley Nea and Brian Wallace Advertising were setting up without creative departments. When van der Lee handed in his notice at Owens, creative boss Declan Hogan said “that's great – we'll use you”.

Goodbody recalls getting the guts of a year's work from working with Owens on Tourism Brand Ireland alone. The name Adept? It appears van der Lee met Hogan by chance and his ex-boss asked him what they were going to call themselves. “We're thinking of AD Creative Facilities,” van der lee said, “Adrian… Denis…AD, get it?”

Hogan was unimpressed and while Goodbody reminded van der Lee that he was no longer answerable to his alma mater, they agreed Adept was the way to go. The business was not modelled on any particular agency. The duo were not trying to reinvent adland in the way some London agencies, like HHCL or St Luke's, had done.

“The notion at first,” van der Lee said, “was that we would be an independent creative resource for agencies. That was the business plan to begin with before we started working for clients in our own right. Rather than be just freelancers, working from a desk at home, we set up as a company with an office based in the centre of town.

“There was ready-made creative service there – a copywriter and art director. So any creative director who needed back-up, either staff on holidays or where they had tried to crack a brief and it had gone pear-shaped – as campaigns often do – we were there. A brief for Apple Computer at 5pm and the next morning we had 20 ideas for them.”

Adept and the clients they serviced did not happen overnight. They had been brewing for some time. While Goodbody did not run off from DDFH&B with the Heineken account, work that he done on projects for O'Leary PR (he and Mari O'Leary had worked together in Helme/Communicado) had set the fledgling agency on course for new prospects.

But how would two advertising creatives with no history in hustling business expect to set the world on fire? When they set up, the management end, the account handling, was done by the agencies, their clients, as before, so all they had to do was keep track of their time and costs of materials sourced and then send in invoices. Simple.

But things started to change a few years later. Adept showed itself capable at winning business in its own right and Goodbody and van der Lee began finding themselves opening and closing doors for clients/rival agencies at pitches. The waters were getting muddied and some close relationships deteriorated. But it was inevitable and above board.

“With both us having worked in full service agencies,” van der Lee said, “we noticed the number of account handlers who contributed positively to the process of making and selling ads and you could count them on one hand. There was a lot of dead wood.”

Lunchers. People whose idea of client service is “would you like another glass of wine? Or a round of golf?” Adept had little time for Dobbins or little white balls during the two years they handled the Euro Changeover. It was an account which helped their reputation and bank balance but it hardly resulted in new clients amassing at their door.

They were lucky to have landed the Euro as the economy took a nose dive and some agencies were feeling the pressure. Agencies were letting staff go, Arks sank and then AFA courted Des O'Meara & Partners. With help from former Guinness executive Frank Nolan, Adept began working for Waterford Crystal and the new John Rocha line.

Nolan recommended that they pitch for Repak and they won it against Cawley Nea, among others. The Euro campaign was run with military precision by the client. They would work three months ahead on concepts and yet there were only four people working on the business. Goodbody says there are a lot of misconceptions about creative teams.

“I've worked in agencies where there are people chewing pencils,” he said. “They say you have to have two weeks to come up with an idea. The amount of time you have to come up an idea is how long time is reasonably necessary. If there's been a fire and you have to run a press ad, you have an hour. The Euro couldn't have gone smoother.”

van der Lee said the pitch document Adept had put in was in three phases and the campaigns they created were by and large the ones that ran. Shortly before winning the Euro, Goodbody and van der Lee had done a stock take and looked at how they had moved from a facility to an agency in their own right.

They like being a small entity, each to their own.

It is pragmatic in terms of how they operate the agency and it makes sense from an economic perspective. While neither Goodbody nor van der Lee could ever be described as controversial or outspoken on industry issues, when queried they address relevant topics candidly.

Goodbody says that the full service agency may be an endangered specie. “There's been a desperate struggle to turn a full service agency into a village made of components. When I began in advertising 20 years they were starting up McConnells Brands Hatch – or whatever it was called! Advertisers go to all sorts of agencies for all sorts of jobs.”

Adept pitched recently for the Teagasc farm advisory body recently and between that project and their work for the Irish Farmers Journal over the years they have noticed a seismic change in rural Ireland and on life generally outside the Pale. Goodbody is taken by the new look landscape 'down the country' and the challenge facing marketers.

“There's such an enormous change in rural Ireland,” he remarked, “punters from Dublin moving down there because they can afford a house, so there's commuting going on. There's more jobs in local areas, people from other countries moving in and more and more farmers are either giving up entirely or going into part-time farming.”

Most everyone in marketing recognises the trends but Goodbody believes the Farmers Journal, those running the Trust, are fixed on the idea that they will only talk to people who will do “proper, grown up, full-time farming”. He sees this blinkered approach as regrettable as the Farmers Journal is an incredibly strong channel into rural Ireland.

The size of Adept matches the client list. Nowadays what helps keep them out of trouble is creating campaigns for the likes of Ergo Software Solutions, Lisney, Canada Life, Premier Recruitment, 20th Century Fox and Marriott. With the hunt on for new radio licences, Denis O'Brien's Communicorp has also been putting more business their way.

Goodbody was approached by Communicorp to put together a video for the BCI aural hearing when Newstalk was applying for the national licence. From that, Adept was asked to do something for the Spin South West presentation. 98FM then asked them to become their creative agency.

Do Goodbody and van der Lee want Adept to be big, or bigger? No, that is not the plan. They would appoint an account handler provided they can find someone in the mould of former colleague Nora Ahern who can get new business. Being big, lunching or playing golf is irrelevant to them but creating ideas with all round returns works.