While Mr. Wieden had his playful side, he was anything but a softy. Once, after the agency had worked tirelessly on a pitch for a client, “nothing was landing” during a presentation meeting in New York, Mr. Lieberman recalled. “The clients were rolling their eyes,” he said.
During the pitch, one client passed a note to another, which Mr. Lieberman caught a glimpse of. “Are they serious with this?” it read, with a few obscenities added for effect.
“As everyone was packing up and leaving,” Mr. Lieberman said, “Dan stood up and said, ‘This work is great,and you’re out of your minds if you don’t like it,’” adding a choice obscenity of his own.
“The man was consistently so damn nice and so kind,” Mr. Lieberman said. “But if someone ever got out of line, he never hesitated to pulverize them.”
In addition to his wife, Mr. Wieden is survived by his daughters, Cassie Wieden, Tami Wiedensmith and Laura Wieden Blatner, and his son, Bryan, all from his first marriage; a brother, Ken; a sister, Sherrie; and 12 grandchildren.
His most enduring client, Mr. Knight, admitted in his Ad Age tribute that his famous line about hating advertising had been misinterpreted over the years.
“What I really meant was that I hated traditional advertising, where Joe Jock says, ‘Smoke Lucky Strike because I do,’ or ‘Drink X Cola like I do,’” Mr. Knight wrote.
“Dan Wieden,” he said, “interpreted me before I interpreted me.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
