While even the most casual industry observer could probably tell you MJZ reigned over the year's best American work, nothing hammers home the point like the DGA's shortlist for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials. Of the five nominees - Craig Gillespie, Spike Jonze, Rocky Morton, Rupert Sanders and Noam Murro - four reside with MJZ, with only Murro working elsewhere.

What a year. Even by its own lofty standards, MJZ had a phenomenal creative campaign, producing at least five spots of such high calibre they'd be guaranteed to place at the top of the heap for most other prodcos. There was Jonze's "Hello Tomorrow" for Adidas, an extraordinary handmade dreamscape that would have ransacked Cannes if not for "Grrr"; Fredrik Bond's "Gimme The Ball" for Adidas, which spun European football into the world of the grotesque; Sanders' hugely imaginative "Joy" for Xbox, an ad that helped the gaming console hold its ground against PlayStation's brainy creative; Nicolai Fuglsig's "Balls" for Sony Bravia, a frontrunner for the year's most iconic ad, and Gillespie's "Dinner" for Ameriquest, a Super Bowl favorite and Emmy Award winner.

All that without even mentioning names like Dante Ariola, Tom Kuntz and Morton, all of whom continued to put out exceptional work in '05. Indeed, the longer you stare at MJZ's stacked roster, the more you feel like they're the production world's New York Yankees; both are so good on paper, you wonder how they're even allowed to play in the same league as everyone else.

Except, of course, that the Yankees have won precisely zero World Series' in the last five years, whereas MJZ has seen more than its fair share of the winner's circle, most recently nabbing the Palme d'Or in Cannes. President (and resident Z) David Zander is the first to acknowledge that an on-paper advantage doesn't necessarily translate to victory, especially in the ultra-competitive world of commercial production. Does MJZ have it any easier because of its intimidating roster? Zander laughs. "Oh my God, it's a total misconception," he says by phone from his Los Angeles office. "There are other bidders at other companies that agencies consider equals or alternate possibilities to our guys, so it's always competitive. Two or more people going after any project makes it competitive, especially at the level where they're all super bright and super talented."

At that advanced stage the bidding process becomes "a competition of detail and subtlety" with margin too frequently being sacrificed at the altar of a great idea. "Most of the people who do great work... are driven by ideas," Zander says. "Sometimes it's the simple construction of a sentence that sends things one way or another, sometimes it's luck. It's choosing the right movie reference or having the right spin or tone that goes with their idea."

So it's not exactly like picking cherries. MJZ executive producer Lisa Rich argues the days where prodcos could go into a bid resting on its laurels are long gone. "Every single project is now a fight to the finish on a creative and financial level," she says. "It's very interesting when we get on creative calls - [it's clear that] whatever director you choose has always got to be at the top of their game and fully passionate about a project, because if they aren't, someone else will be. It is a level playing field that way."