1/9/23

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Kelley Deveny, the unapologetically authentic linguistic creative who taught the world that no concoction of words is too unexpected, no consumer brand too pedestrian, and no genre of music intolerable, passed away in her Malibu home on Friday evening. She was 100.

 

The cause of her death remains unknown, though her daughter Molly relayed to the Times that she passed “peacefully in her sleep”, and that conversations during her final few weeks of life signaled to her loved ones that she felt ready to depart. “She lived a beautifully fulfilled and vibrant life and seemed to have wrung every last drop of enjoyment from her time on Earth”, Molly wrote.

 

Kelley leaves behind an accomplished and decorated copywriting career, winning her first merit award during the Young Ones Student Awards in college for her PETA campaign. Later, her work received recognition twice more by the One Club for Creativity, once in the Clio awards, and three times in the Effie awards.

 

Deveny proved an anomaly in that her words earned her a name during an era when nobody seemed to read anymore. But against all odds, audiences of every walk of life cherished her work, even those far removed from the ad world.

 

Her love for writing began early in life; her prized essays often referenced being a young reader. “Our mom would have to confiscate her chapter books from her because she would stay up late reading under the covers”, wrote her older sister Kamryn, the only remaining member of Kelley’s immediate family.

 

Attending the University of Colorado Boulder later in life, Kelley thrived both socially and academically. She often remembers her time in Boulder as some of the most lively and formative years of her life, finding a community in Delta Gamma and putting her creativity to use as the sorority’s social chair for one year.

 

Yet it was through academics at CU that Kelley found her true passion: creative copywriting. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she recalled that she “fell into” the creative advertising track within the communications school, and “the rest was history”.

 

It was in these portfolio-based classes that Kelley learned the importance of intelligent thinking – to not think outside of the box but to draw an entirely new box and scribble inside of it until something incredible formed.

 

Her spell in the agency world lasted sixteen years. Some of her most famous work includes the “See Yourself in My Eyes” campaign for Ray-Ban, the “A Mind is a Precious Thing to Taste” campaign for Nature Made vitamins, and her pioneering work for Delta, which quite literally positioned her name among the stars. Each of these campaigns, as well as others unmentioned, feature lines that went viral on social media and engraved themselves in people’s minds, reviving widespread appreciation for creative ad work.

 

Perhaps the most pivotal point in Deveny’s career was her work for Fender.

 

“She fought for that account harder than I had ever seen a creative fight in my life”, recalls former Ogilvy creative director, Damon Lockett. “It was obvious to anyone who knew her – and anyone who has read her later pieces – that she loved nothing more in the world than music, especially when it involved guitars”.

 

This much is clear. Her work for Fender, titled “Sound and Color”, seems to drip with the passion of both a strung-out composer and a Deadhead band groupie– exactly the type of voice that sings to musicians. Not only did this campaign win three separate awards (a gold One Club pencil, a Clio, and an Effie award), but it also skyrocketed Fender’s sales, securing them above Gibson as the market’s top-selling guitar manufacturer.

 

However, the Fender account only foreshadowed some of the most remarkable and expressive work Kelley wrote. After leaving Ogilvy two years later, she began writing freelance, publishing essay collections and other short-form works in magazines like Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, and Time.

 

It was through these words that Deveny’s fanbase finally met the mind behind the ads that stuck in people’s heads for years.

She wrote about her experiences fighting with her parents as a teenager, and the time she “accepted death” after following her much-more-talented friends down a double-black diamond ski run. She wrote about her daily 4-coffee minimum and her personal philosophy of treating others equitably and with respect.

 

She admired words and made a strong case for the fun of reading Shakespeare (if you thought of it as a game where the goal was to uncover what the heck he was trying to say). She refused to eat anything that swam, yet loved going for sushi because fried rice is delicious. Music was, of course, a common theme in her work – from a four-page detailed

description of what it felt like to play guitar with bleeding fingers to an adamant defense of electronic music as an art form.

 

At a time when essay- and article-reading seemed a dying hobby for the general public, Kelley catalyzed its revival. Her thoughts and experiences were attainable; her addiction to caffeine was relatable and her stories about being a “high school loser” self-deprecating. Her readers felt that they had a relationship with her – which is why they kept coming back for more.

 

Above all, and yet often unexpectedly so, her work enlightened. She often had your thoughts on puppet strings, leading you to a realization before you even realized you got out of your seat.

 

The advertising industry mourns, today, one of its greats. And literary fans mourn the voice that revitalized a dying craft. Above all, the world mourns the ever-amicable, self-assured, and passionate Kelley Deveny.