In an industry where we think we've seen it all, it's good to know that there's still room for surprises - especially when they come as an opera-singing rabbit or a gruff man-mom.

But such conceptual treats are par for the course for group creative directors Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone of TBWA\Chiat\Day, NY whose spots for Masterfoods (Skittles, Snickers and Combos) and Nextel (including "Dance Party") have elicited high praise and raised eyebrows from consumers and Cannes juries alike; Skittles "Trade" (the rabbit) won a Bronze Lion at Cannes and Combos (the man-mom) won a Silver Lion for the five-spot campaign.

While they're firing on all cylinders these days, writer Reichenthal and art director Vitrone have been honing their skills in the business with various agencies in various locales, including stops at Wieden + Kennedy, Portland where they first met in 1998 and worked on Nike, Cliff Freeman & Partners, which resulted in Mike's Hard Lemonade spots ("Ape-like Man," "Second Evil Head" and "X-Ray"), and a freelance gig at BBDO where they first met Gerry Graf. In 2003, they made the move to TBWA.

No matter the client, Reichenthal says their work always originates from "a truth or insight about the product".

"We can't just assume that we already have people's attention," he says. "They're not just sitting by the TV waiting to hear everything we have to say on the subject of pretzel snacks. If that means putting a big, hairy man in a dress, then so be it."

And for the team's hilarious spots for Combos, in which a man dressed as a mother chides his adult kids for not eating enough pretzel snacks, that's exactly what it meant. But is it difficult to convince a client that an operatic bunny (whose voice, incidentally, was Reichenthal's) is "on strategy"? While the snack product demographic is young and decidedly anti-marketing, one has to wonder if some clients may be a little skittish about some of the concepts.

"Are there times when the Masterfoods client has said 'That's too much?' Yes," says Reichenthal. "Especially at the beginning. But we have a close relationship and they've seen good business results from the work. Now we're at a point in our relationship where we sometimes have our clients say, 'That's not enough'."

"Look at all of advertising," adds Vitrone. "It's surreal everywhere you look. How is an opera-singing rabbit more surreal than a woman dancing around her kitchen singing about her Swiffer? It's served up as though this is really happening in a kitchen somewhere in America. That's way more surreal!" >

< Point: Vitrone. "When we first started working on candy, we thought to ourselves 'Here's a category that should be having more fun than it is. It's candy'." But while their candy commercial work is sweet, it's no cakewalk creating the stuff.

"We've been working together for a long time," says Reichenthal. "When one of us comes up with an idea and the other one doesn't like it, we'll just say 'Eh'. That's it. There's no sparing of the other's feelings. There's no diplomacy. It's just 'Eh' and we move on."

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