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David Kennedy, co-founder of the Portland advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, has died at age 82.
Kennedy’s death was first reported in a lengthy obituary in Ad Week.
Kennedy grew up in Oklahoma, studied art in Chicago and moved to Portland in 1979 with the ad agency McCann-Erickson.
Along with his business partner, Dan Wieden, Kennedy founded a small firm on April Fool’s Day in 1982, far from the traditional advertising meccas of New York and Chicago.
Today, Wieden+Kennedy employs 1,400 people in eight offices around the world.
Although the firm earned global recognition and numerous awards for its work for Nike, it has built a stable of clients, including Old Spice, Heinz, McDonald’s, Honda and Fan Duel, to name just a few.
Kennedy worked on the “Just Do It” campaign for Nike and on the ads that made Michael Jordan and Spike Lee synonymous with the brand. He also worked on the campaign for Honda that placed the singer Lou Reed on a Honda scooter, along with many other ads that etched themselves into pop culture.
A prolific sculptor whose work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Kennedy retired from the agency in 1995 to concentrate on his art and charitable work, although he still stopped by the agency’s Pearl District headquarters periodically.
“David Kennedy’s heart and soul and neural pathways are etched deep inside Wieden+Kennedy,” Wieden once said according to the firm. “It’s who we are, it’s what we do, and it’s why we do it.”
In retirement, Kennedy also devoted substantial time and energy to the American Indian College Fund, a longtime W+K client.
One of the last projects he worked on before his death Oct. 10 was a promotional campaign titled This Is Indian Country for the fund. It launched Oct. 11, Indigenous Peoples Day.
Kennedy is survived by his wife of 58 years, Kathleen, and children Cathlin, Brendan, Erinn and Siobhan, and preceded in death by his son Ian.