Production-department-for-hire Beacoup Chapeaux and agency SquareOne continue their long-standing collaboration in campaigns for Icehouse Breweries and the Texas Rangers.

"We don't have producers on staff so we contract work out to them," says SquareOne CD Kevin Sutton. "In the past, we've tried to get the ball rolling on bringing someone in house but we never found anyone who would do a better job. If not for Lisa [Dee] at Beacoup we wouldn't be doing the Icehouse job. She worked with Millers' independent cost consultant to pull this off, both logistically and budget wise."

"We work with SquareOne as though we were an in-house department," says Chapeaux prez Dee. "We are proactive about working with account services and creative teams, knowing what is coming up when. We do this for both broadcast and for talent residual projects. We are set up so we can be a resource, either for one project or for their entire gamut of needs."

The Icehouse work revolves around ad concepts suggested by beer drinkers and has thus far spawned three campaigns. The first campaign, directed by Production League Of America's Evan Bernard, presented SquareOne concepts (like a breakdancer in a robot suit constructed of Icehouse boxes throwing it down) as samples of spot ideas submitted by viewers. The second and third campaigns, directed by Jeff Fuerzig of Directorz and Jim Tozzi of Stationwagon, Los Angeles, respectively, drew from nearly 10,000 ideas supplied by Icehouse drinkers; one favorite has a mulleted daredevil pulling naked bike stunts.

For the Texas Rangers, Chris Smith of Dallas' Sugar Film directed spots that for the first 15 seconds, appear to be poorly made local commercials, complete with misleading crawler text. The kicker comes in the spots second half, along with connections to the fake advertisers. One spot has slugger Alex Rodriguez knocking one out of the park, making the fake intro from Kenny's Mobile Glass Repair all the more apt.

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SquareOne> http://www.sq1inc.com
beacoup chapeaux> http://www.manyhats.com