Fabio Fernandes is one of the most influential creatives in the world. He was the founder and creative director of F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, which earned titles such as Ad Age’s “Agency of the Year for the Americas” and Cannes “Agency of the Year.” Fabio himself has collected 75 Cannes Lions and more than 10 D&AD Yellow Pencils.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:19 On Fast Decisions
02:35 On Competition and Imposter Syndrome
04:05 Honesty When Facing Failure
06:34 Overconfidence Leads to Numbness
07:48 Sharpen Your Critical Thinking
09:35 Thinking Critically About Your Own Work
11:19 The Deal Between Brand and Customer
14:02 Fabio’s Approach to Briefing Meetings
15:27 Facing the Blank Page
16:37 The Art of Saying Just One Thing
19:56 Constraints Help You Be Creative
20:42 Example of Turning Constraints into Fuel
23.51 When Advertising Becomes Culture
26:05 On Writing in Advertising
27:25 Critical Thinking in Action
28:52 Writing with Sound in Mind
28:52 Fabio on Writing Scripts
32:30 Fabio’s Take on Craft
34:11 The Mirror Trap in Writing Manifestos
36:35 Sold Work Doesn’t Mean Great Work
37:40 If You Don’t Believe It Don’t Sell It
39:33 Use Presentations to Improve the Work
40:06 Never Stop Creating as a Creative Director
41:58 Lead by Example
43:46 Shaping Culture at the Agency
46:23 Character Is the Key to Hiring
48:48 About the Current State of the Industry
50:08 Outro
Transcript
The below is a true verbatim transcript taken directly from the video. It captures the conversation exactly as it happened.
Chapter 1. On Fast Decisions
I usually make decisions very quickly. I think I’ve kind of trained myself to be this way, especially when it comes to creative things, because I became a creative director very early. I was basically a kid when I got that role. And very early on, I also realized I shouldn’t give up the craft of creating. What did that do to me? It could have made the work much worse, but what really happened was that my life got much worse, because I would leave the agency at 4 a.m. since I refused to stop creating. As a side effect, it left me with this ability to make decisions quickly, because I didn’t have time to keep thinking and rethinking a million things. So usually, I have a sharp sense of, “Yes, got it, next, I got it.” To the point that, as a creative director, I would always tell people, “Listen, if you want to tell me the idea instead of writing it down, you can tell me. The only difference is that I think you develop the idea better when you start to write it. But I’ll be very quick to understand whether it’s good or bad.”
Chapter 2. On Competition & Imposter Syndrome
I’m competitive, but before anything else, I worry about what people will think of me if I mess up. It starts as this need to explain myself and to not let myself make mistakes in public. And our work is public, right? So I chase perfection at an almost obsessive level I’ve had my whole life—not to compete at first, but to leave no gaps, no room for people to see that I’m a fraud. But once the work is done—once the “doing” part is over—then competition kicks in, because everything gets compared. What we do always ends up being compared to something else, on two levels. There’s the market level, which I honestly don’t care much about in terms of what our craft is really for. And then there’s the consumer level, which, in my opinion, has always been an important lens for my work.
Chapter 3. Honesty When Facing Failure
There are different kinds of failure, right? There’s the kind that has more to do with our self-esteem and pride than with whether the job actually works. Sometimes the work doesn’t please you, but given the job, the client, and the money they’ve put into it, your doubts don’t really make sense. So they’ll say, “I get it, but I think it’s great.” That’s tough, because in the end they’re funding the project. You’re working for them, not for your ego. And there were times when I realized halfway through that it was wrong. That’s more serious, because then it’s not just about your taste anymore, it’s a strategic mistake for the client. In that case, nothing beats being honest. In our field, that’s risky—we all know that—but it’s about professional integrity. If I think something, I say it clearly to the people who trust me. Even if that might create some mistrust in that person from that moment on, I’d rather fix the situation now and avoid the cliff I see ahead than stay quiet thinking about my long-term payoff, especially if that means lying. Many times that led me to take a loss, and in cases with clients who really trusted me, sometimes they took the loss. A few times in my life—not billions, but still a few—I had to say, “Guys, it’s bad, it’s ugly, it’s poorly done—it’s wrong.” And the client said, “OK, toss it, let’s go to the next.” That only happens when you have a top-notch relationship with the people who work with you and the people who hire you. I still think it’s better to be honest than to stay quiet thinking only about your future payoff.
Chapter 4. Overconfidence Leads to Numbness
I don’t think it’s good to start creative work without at least a bit of a knot in your stomach, otherwise you become cynical. It’s important to question yourself all the time. Self-confidence is essential, but overconfidence can lead to numbness. If you’re 100% confident all the time, you most likely won’t feel that restlessness of constantly asking, “What if I’m wrong?” “What if it’s not that great?” or “What if I did it differently?” “What if I didn’t consider it done and built something bigger from that same idea?” It’s that insecurity, that fear of being caught—what always drove me was the fear of being caught. I refused to admit I was a fraud, so I pushed harder. I had to go further, try more. And one day you realize that meant being good, but really, from the start, it was a huge fear of being bad.
Chapter 5. Sharpen Your Critical Thinking
I think the key trait for a creative is critical thinking. That’s the main one. It’s unlikely someone will be creative in any field without a core need to always look at things critically. It’s like nothing should ever stay exactly as it is. With everything, I think, “What if we did it another way?” It’s often hell for the people who live with us, right? With my kids, for example—if something’s happening, I’ll go, “But why?” And they’re like, “Oh my God, here he comes.” They get nervous because they know I’m about to question who decided that this is the standard and that it has to be this way. I see that it doesn’t have to be this way, or that there’s a much better way. Why is it like this? Who decided it should be this way? Wouldn’t it be smarter to do it differently? So there’s something very inherent to a creator’s personality. I’m not saying everyone is like me, but that’s what I see in most cases—writers, visual artists. There’s this common thread: critical thinking. A need to constantly evaluate what everyone takes for granted. And we don’t just go along with top-down decisions or whatever someone says is the right way.
Chapter 6. Thinking Critically About Your Work
Thinking critically about your own work is the highest level of craft. When you reach that, you’re at the top. Early in your creative career, you don’t know much—you can’t even really judge work yet. You go on personal taste, like “I think it’s funny,” but you can barely rank what’s better or worse among what you’ve seen. For example, when I started, I went through international and Brazilian award annuals and treated them as absolute truth, no questions asked. Gold beats silver, which beats bronze. I learned what was good, great, memorable based on the criteria of people I felt I should respect, as if they were up on Olympus. Later, I got bold enough to say, “Damn, this is way off—this isn’t bronze, it’s gold,” or, “This isn’t gold at all; it shouldn’t even be in this book.” I reached a point where I understood and built my own criteria from all that information and all those expectations. And the hardest step is applying that same critical sense to what you’re making right now—the line you just wrote, the idea you just had. Because you tend to get attached and rationalize: “Damn, this brief is tough,” “It came in late and now I have to rush.” You can keep giving yourself excuses, but none of that goes out with the idea you put on air. No one will say, “This is bad because it was a quick turnaround.” That won’t be there. So building critical judgment about your own work—self-critique—is what makes you stand out in this business.
Chapter 7. The Deal Between Brand and Customer
Advertising is paying to say good things about yourself. No one runs ads to talk shit about themselves. That’s the basic deal between a brand and a consumer in any ad. That’s also one of the reasons ads feel so worn out to people today—especially in a super-fragmented media world where consumers question advertisers more and more. People see brands just buying space to praise themselves. Good advertising—now more than ever—is about knowing how to deal with that. You have to start from the premise that the audience knows exactly what you’re doing. The conversation should assume no one’s trying to trick anyone. Still, you might think I’m here to trick you—it’s plainly an ad. So how has advertising dealt with this today, in 99% of cases? It’s given up. It decided people won’t let brands be provocative, funny, and smart the way they used to be in the past. The industry just gave up. Since you know it’s an ad and I’m not fooling you, I’ll just tell you some things and hope you remember me when you buy. In the other 1%, it’s that old, fun cat-and-mouse game—we both know it’s a game. It assumes no deception, and if at any point someone wonders whether they’re being tricked, they quickly see their intelligence is being respected. That respect is key to building brands through communication—the kind of brands we’re talking about here.
Chapter 8. Fabio’s Approach to Briefing Meetings
In a briefing, I need to leave knowing there’s a funnel—a clear direction. If not, I’ll end up doing that work mentally, on instinct, while I’m creating, constantly rechecking as I go. I need to feel grounded, right? Being grounded means I can’t be thinking about every possible path, but I do know that whatever’s left really matters, and it’s worth the effort to get there. Another key thing for any creative is knowing exactly what will stick with the consumer after they read, watch, or listen to the ad. It’s not going to be 30 things. Cutting the other 29 is crucial. For me, that’s always been a big point in client meetings: whatever won’t fit, we won’t put in. We’re not going to force things in just to tick boxes—“we said this, we said that.” We can give those things a quick nod somewhere, but ideally, they don’t crowd the core message.
Chapter 9. Facing the Blank Page
For me, starting means putting in front of me everything I need to show or include. I don’t avoid that stuff. Then I can start thinking about things that question it, and I’m like, “Damn, yeah, maybe we don’t need this,” and I feel like I can convince the client. But first, it’s this: if we decided we’re going to say something and everyone agreed on it, I need to say it in the best way possible. I need to show it in the best way possible. So I stay focused on that. Of course, it’s natural to go off track—your mind keeps going, other ideas pop up. Sometimes they’re so good they’re worth questioning the rest. Or you think, “That’s for another moment, another day, another time. I’ll save it.” Because if we’ve agreed that, for this brand’s story, we need to tell this chapter now, then what I have to do is create something that doesn’t make me sad about not doing something else—I have to make something better.
Chapter 10. The Art of Saying Just One Thing
I made Philco’s “little ants” commercial. There were about 30 things to say about the product, because it was a kind of sound system Philco didn’t usually make. It had LEDs, new surround sound—a ton of features. Once I convinced the client that the main focus should be the power of the sound, that’s when the insecurity kicked in. You’re telling someone who has other beliefs that this is the most important thing. At some point they go, “OK, let’s do what you’re saying.” Then they look at you like, “So? What’s next?” And you think, “My God, now what?” I convinced them, now they’re waiting on me. Like I said, when I’m insecure, I stick to the focus: power, power, power, power, power. How do we show that in a way that looks totally different from anything we’ve seen before? I’m very visual. Even though I’m a copywriter, I’m very visual. I strip things down to the minimum. So if what we’re going to say is “the sound is powerful,” I still don’t want to just say it—I want to show it. But how do you show sound power on TV? With sound? On TV? You can’t, because it’s the viewer’s TV volume that decides whether it feels powerful or not, loud or not. So how do we make power visible? I thought about the impact on the speaker—when you crank the bass and it shakes. The first idea was to hang something on the speaker and blast it off. The next idea—second, third, fifth, whatever—was to make that “something” an ant, an insect we’d eject. Then I built the story backward. I wouldn’t start by showing a speaker pushing the ant away. I’d start with the story of three crazy ants that keep going to a place we can’t see, and then they come out up top, flying. Then we pull the camera back a bit, or slide it over, and reveal the ants’ game: climbing onto the speaker and being launched away. That endless loop was their little ant party. That was my thinking.
