Jason Kreher receives the 2017 Henry W. Grady Mid-Career Alumni Award
Jason Kreher, creative director at Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Oregon, is the 2017 recipient of the Henry W. Grady Mid-Career Alumni Award. The award honors a graduate who has been influential in his field.
In his role at Wieden+Kennedy, Kreher works for clients such as KFC, Verizon, Weight Watchers and Old Spice.
“It’s different every day, which is why I like my job for the most part.” Kreher said in an interview with Grady College in 2015. “All of the thinking we do on each account is in service of making smart, funny work that people will like. I think a creative director’s job is to help identify the best ideas, and then to help protect those ideas from people who want to make them worse.”
Prior to becoming a creative director, Kreher was a copywriter on Old Spice, Target, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Jaguar, Howard Stern for Sirius and MTV.
Kreher graduated summa cum laude with Highest Honors from Grady College in 2000. In his 17-year advertising career, he has won nearly every major industry award, including 12 Cannes Lions and the AICP’s Campaign of the Year, a distinction that puts Kreher’s work in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. In 2015, AdWeek chose him as one of the top 30 most innovative people in media.
In addition to his work in advertising, Kreher recently debuted his first short film at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah. He also published his first book in 2015: a collection of cruel Popsicle stick jokes called SchadenFreezers that reached number eight on Amazon’s best-selling humor books.
Kreher will be recognized at “Grady Salutes: A Celebration of Achievement, Commitment and Leadership” on April 28 at 6 p.m. at the UGA Tate Grand Hall. Other 2017 Alumni Award recipients include:
- Bonnie Arnold (ABJ’ 77), John Holliman Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award
- Jane B. Singer (ABJ ’76), Distinguished Alumni Scholar Award
- Brooke Beach (ABJ ’11), John E. Drewry Young Alumni Award
Read more about this year’s Alumni Award honorees at https://t.uga.edu/37u.