Koala bear abuse, talking gummy bears and breakdancing eyebrows are par for the course in Tom Kuntz’s world of artfully asinine comedy. But like many commercial directors, Kuntz, who has become a familiar fixture in our top directors issue, making his third consecutive appearance, endeavors to experiment. And this year he did something outrageous by his own standards: he worked with Coca-Cola.

In “Crave”, from Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam, the 36-year-old saw a chance to take the soft drink giant’s cheerful commercials – and his reel – into darker territory. “It was an interesting opportunity to do a different tone for them,” he says. “I’ve turned down so many Coke projects because they always seem to not be good. It just seems like such a corporate process.”

With its Hitchcockian tension and clever visual trickery, the 60-second tale of a man haunted by visions of Coca-Cola iconography in a European metropolis stands out as a stylish bit of commercial cinema on his 2008 reel, which, incidentally, was filled with most of the year’s best comedy spots. Among them: the maniacally-paced Careerbuilder.com “Tips”; Cadbury and Fallon, London’s viral smash “Eyebrow Dance”; a sweetly absurd campaign for The Natural Confectionary Company (also for Fallon); and the addictively humable CG karaoke homage “Lips”, for Xbox.

Those spots clicked, he says, because he’s already established close working relationships with many of the creative teams involved. “Doing it long enough you get to know the people, the projects and the clients that are going to follow through and the ones that are going to be a harder process,” he says. “At some point when it’s a major corporation like Coke, what can you do? You can only go so far.”

Familiarity proved fertile territory. Last year he reunited with W+K, Portland creative team Eric Kallman and Craig Allen (the former TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York brains with whom he had worked many times on the long-standing and hugely successful Skittles campaign) on four Careerbuilder.com spots. The client liked “Tips” so much, it opted to air the :60 version during the Super Bowl rather than two :30 spots. Kuntz is also working with the duo to develop a TV series.

His sweet spot with candy comedy also saw him point his absurd lens at two UK brands, both for Fallon, London, broadening his comic repertoire into borderline experimental territory. A trio of ads for The Natural Confectionary Company consisting of static shots of gummies voiced by British TV comedians spawned the unlikely slogan “Bring on the Trumpets!”

Meanwhile, “Eyebrow Dance”, the latest non-sequitur sensation for Cadbury, starred two children in a photo studio performing dance moves with their elastic eyebrows to an ’80s electro-funk track. The “Gorilla” sequel immediately captured the British public’s imagination, racking up a million YouTube views in less than a week and inspiring a parody by pop singer Lily Allen.

“Of all the ad campaigns out there, Cadbury is a good one. It’s forward thinking in that it’s experimental,” he says. “When something is a weird little art piece with a logo at the end, as a director you go, ‘I’d rather spend three weeks doing that than something with 14 insurance company logos.’”

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