Everybody play ball: Regular guys and star athletes both appear in the first work from 180 for Adidas, which invites people to enjoy sports at whatever level of performance their ability allows.(Amsterdam advertising agency founded by ex-Wieden and Kennedy creative director Larry Frey)

Advertising Age, October, 1999 by Vagnoni, Anthony

If you're going to start an ad agency, especially one born in controversy, taking as its first client a brand competing with a deep-pocketed giant and, simultaneously, trying to achieve what few have done before successfully, maybe it helps to have MacGyver on your side.

You remember Angus MacGyver. As played by Richard Dean Anderson in the TV series, MacGyver was a mysterious special agent who, wielding not much more than a pocket knife, could get himself out of just about any jam.

Back before he defected from Portland, Ore.-based Wieden & Kennedy, creatives who worked with Larry Frey dubbed him MacGyver.

``He's one of those guys who can build a car from scratch,'' said Hank Perlman, a former W&K copywriter and now a commercial director....

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.