How's this for good fortune: Duncan Marshall and Howard Willmott met in a one-year advertising, art direction and copywriting course at North London's Watford College. In a class of about 24 students, Marshall the art director and Wilmott the copywriter found each other right from the start, and despite being encouraged to work with as many other people as possible, kept their pairing intact for the entire term.

That was 16 years ago. Believe it or not, the partnership that began in the classroom is still trucking along - for exactly every second they've been in advertising Marshall and Wilmott have been partners. Their streak includes five years at small UK agency Laing Henry, six years at Saatchi, London and another extended run at Publicis, NY, which culminated last September with the pair being named EVPs and ECDs.

Since joining Publicis in June 2003, the pair have managed work for TBS, Coke, Heineken, Beefeater and Stolichnaya. A Gunn Report favorite (they've featured in the publication's top 10 creative teams), it's no coincidence that Marshall and Willmott's first year in New York coincided with Publicis being named the city's most awarded agency. But beyond a few simple tweaks, such as their motion to collect Publicis' scattered creative department onto one floor, they haven't been brought in to impose a more British sensibility.

"We're not about that," Willmott says. "Before we came, we always said that when the US gets it right, it does it better than anyone. There's a simplicity and a confidence, and they're never shy about selling something. Brits tend to be subtle like it's embarrassing that they're actually selling a product."

Marshall concurs.

"We didn't want to bring an English style, but we did want to bring practices that we thought worked," he says, citing changes to how the CDs work together and share briefs.

With a history that includes working closely with creative giants like Paul Arden and the recently-departed David Droga, the former students are now well-positioned to administer some advertising wisdom of their own. That, says Marshall, is how they prefer to make their presence felt by helping to facilitate the creative process in fresh and original ways. "[Paul had] a principle that we tell our teams: when you get a brief, always start from your weakest point," he explains. "Maybe the client wants 20 logos or five different phone numbers in a TV ad. Instead of shying away from that and jamming it into the last 10 seconds with a voiceover, embrace it and make it a focal point. If you can do something creative with that, it becomes honest and upfront, possibly funny or completely unexpected."

Beyond that, the pair also try and impress the importance of craft on the creative department. Follow-through and attention to detail, says Marshall, is often what separates the glory campaigns from the pack. "Stella Artois and Guinness and Levi's and Nike and Volkswagen don't [always] have a much better idea, but what sets them apart is the craft," he says. "The way the music's been thought about, the direction, the quality of the acting - every single one of those things has been really thought about. We always tell our teams that getting the scripts sold is really just stage one of about 100."