Dan Wieden, CEO, Wieden and Kennedy, is seen at the 2011AdColor Award Show on Saturday September 17, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. Wieden died Friday, Sept. 30, 2022.
Vince Bucci / AP
Dan Wieden — co-founder of the Portland-based advertising company Wieden+Kennedy who coined the Nike tagline “Just Do It” — died Friday at the age of 77. The company announced his death on Saturday.
Wieden died peacefully in his home in Portland, according to an obituary posted in the Oregonian/OregonLive.
Wieden and his former business partner, David F. Kennedy, together founded one of the most famous advertising companies in the world. W+K became an advertising powerhouse, known for its iconic Nike campaigns, including the “Just Do It” commercials.
Wieden was born and raised in Portland, where he went to Grant High School. He graduated from University of Oregon with a degree in journalism, before he later got into public relations and copywriting.
Wieden worked for Georgia-Pacific, a forest products company based in Portland.
“On April Fool’s Day, 1982, Wieden and David Kennedy founded Wieden+Kennedy. With a card table, a few chairs, some cardboard file cabinets, and one client—Nike,” the obituary reads.
Wieden never formally retired from the agency, it reads, but instead “stepped into a chairman role and away from active agency life in 2015.”
His business partner, Kennedy, died last year.