David Kennedy

David Franklin Kennedy (May 31, 1939 – October 10, 2021) was an American advertising executive who co-founded Wieden+Kennedy (W+K). Some of his most popular campaigns included the "Just Do It", "Bo Knows", and the "Mars and Mike" campaigns for Nike, Inc. He and his creative partner Dan Wieden were listed as number 22 on the Advertising Age 100 ad people of the 20th century. Early life Kennedy was born in Wichita, Kansas, on May 31, 1939. He was the only child of Melinda Jane (nee Spoon) and James Franklin Kennedy. His mother was an administrator in a bank while his father was in the petroleum industry. He grew up in Oklahoma and on the eastern Rocky Mountains. He likened his early childhood to that of Tom Sawyer in the wild outdoors with idyllic streams and rivers. He worked his first job as a welder's assistant in Colorado and Oklahoma oil fields. He graduated from University of Colorado at Boulder with a degree in fine arts including printmaking and metal sculptures. He served for six years with the Marine Corps Reserve. Career Kennedy started his career in the advertising industry by moving to Chicago in 1962. He worked at many agencies in Chicago including Young and Rubicam, Benton & Bowles, Needham, and Leo Burnett. He worked there for 16 years before moving to Portland, Oregon, in 1979 to work with McCann Erickson. This was where he met his future collaborator and partner Dan Wieden. The duo moved to the William Cain advertising agency where they made the first pitch for Nike, Inc. which was then a small and growing company based in Beaverton, Oregon. They then started their own company Wieden+Kennedy, styled as W+K, in 1982. They started the company out of a former labor union hall with help from Wieden's father, who had run Gerber Advertising, on the basics of running an agency business. The company was based in Portland, Oregon, at a time when most of the advertising agencies were in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. In one of the agency's most popular campaigns for Nike, Inc. in 1988, Kennedy was the creative director of the first commercial to use Wieden's slogan "Just do it" which featured an 80-year-old man named Walt Stack who ran 17 miles every morning. The campaign slogan was called "America's second anthem" by The New York Times. Working with Wieden, he also developed the campaign for Honda scooters which had American musician and lead of The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, calling out "Don't settle for walking".