We know, it’s written in neon letters on the Temple of Advertising: creativity must solve problems in new and original ways. But what about failed attempts, about ideas that don’t solve anything? Creativity is much more than problem-solving, believes Fernando Silva, Creative Copywriter & Supervisor, Uzina. It’s a form of play, but also a skill that can be trained and developed.
An ad-geek who mixes advertising with absolutely everything in the world and has collected awards at Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, CCP, El Ojo, ADC*E and Effie, Fernando would one day get “ADVERTISE HERE” tattooed somewhere it barely hurts.
“Technology and innovation will continue to introduce new ways of living and, as a result, new insights we can use in communication. But all of that will only truly make sense if there is a human core at the center of it”, says Fernando.
Fernando was part of the ADC*RO Awards 2025 jury. We spoke with him about Romanian advertising seen from the outside, AI, the impact of recent years on the industry, and the questions he keeps returning to in his work.
What drew you to advertising
When I think about it, I feel like my life gradually guided me in that direction.
I remember growing up watching television with my parents and my brother. We spent a lot of time watching ads, and the songs and jokes from commercials became part of our daily routine. Some of them are still part of our shared family memory. To this day, I still enjoy watching television and paying attention to ads.
Unlike many young people, I was very lucky to discover early on something I genuinely enjoyed doing. When I was 14, my father worked in sales, and I had a lot of contact with his profession and the way he approached clients. Being close to that reality shaped how I looked at possible future careers. Because of that experience, when it came time to choose an educational path at school, I took an aptitude test that pointed me toward marketing and advertising.
In the city where I lived, there was a vocational school with a course dedicated to that field. When I visited the facilities, I was immediately convinced. The environment and the school’s resources were better than I could have imagined. Later on, during the course, I was fortunate to have teachers who made me truly fall in love with advertising.
At 18, I enrolled in a university degree with the certainty that I wanted to pursue something related to marketing and advertising.
Your perspective on advertising
At the beginning, when I was a young creative discovering the profession, I had a very romantic view of advertising. I wanted to change the world. I was extremely curious and eager to learn, which made me want to know everything about other campaigns and other creatives. I collected countless references to understand what I could and couldn’t do, and what I should be aiming for as a truly great idea. I wanted every brief to become something special, and that ambition often turned into something exhausting.
Today, I still see the profession through an emotional lens, but experience has given me a more rational perspective on the work and what it represents. I’m now better able to manage frustration and to look at opportunities more critically. I believe the balance I have today has made me a better creative.
I’m still passionate about advertising and I still carry some of my junior creative dreams, but now with the pragmatism of a senior creative. I continue to see what I do as something that, despite being advertising, carries social responsibility and has real importance in the world we live in.
One of the ways I keep my passion alive is by being a teacher at a creativity school. In the classroom, I’m able to apply my knowledge and experience to help young creatives who are going through the same phases I once did. In doing so, I reconnect with that same sense of fascination for the profession.
Your personal definition of creativity
When I think about creativity, the first thing that comes to mind is new and original ideas that solve a problem. That is probably a professional bias. In reality, creativity is much more than problem-solving, especially because there are creative attempts that aim to solve problems and still fail.
Music, painting, and other forms of artistic expression require a great deal of creativity and do not necessarily exist to solve anything.
Sometimes creativity is simply a form of play, where imagination and reality meet. In all of these cases, creativity is a skill that can be trained and developed through practice.
I’m not sure if this is truly an unpopular opinion, but I strongly believe we would see many more good ideas in the creative industry if everyone had an online portfolio. I’m referring not only to creatives, but also to strategists, account managers, and even clients. All of these roles are part of the creative process in different ways, and the ideas we see in the market clearly reflect that shared responsibility.
I’m naturally curious and I love exploring portfolios and how people present their work. Through that curiosity, I’ve come across portfolios from strategists and account managers where they presented ideas and explained their importance within a project. If everyone felt the need to maintain a portfolio, and if part of their career depended on it, I believe we would ultimately see more and better ideas coming to life.
What will define creativity in 2026
Honestly, I don’t know. Technology is evolving at a pace that’s hard to keep up with, even for the most informed people. Trying to predict what will define creativity often feels like a guessing.
If I had to guess, I’d say ideas rooted in human insight will always be what defines creativity. Perhaps, with constant technological evolution, we will want more than ever to reconnect with the emotions that make us human. Technology and innovation will continue to introduce new ways of living and, as a result, new insights we can use in communication. But all of that will only truly make sense if there is a human core at the center of it.
What excites you and what worries you in today’s advertising industry
What excites me the most are smart ideas rooted in human insight. I love seeing strong ideas that, regardless of format or budget, reveal real truths about people and brands and are able to deliver results. I’m especially drawn to cleverness and simplicity.
What worries me most is the number of classic agencies that are disappearing. Over the past year, we’ve seen the closure of several agencies that helped shape advertising as we know it today. It’s probably a result of the natural evolution of the industry, with AI and new tools changing how things work, but it still makes me sad as someone who genuinely loves advertising and its history.
The creative process in the AI era
For me, the creative process as part of a duo hasn’t changed that much. We have an established routine for generating ideas, and AI hasn’t fundamentally altered that. During the conception phase, it sometimes acts as a third element that helps us move a bit faster or go a bit further, either by accessing information more efficiently or by clearing away ideas that are too obvious.
In projects where the main need is copywriting, I use AI as a support tool to more easily arrive at certain expressions or words that help me tell the story I want to tell. Overall, AI has become more useful in the production phase than in the conception phase. This is especially true when producing visuals. For those who work with images, it helps execute things faster, even if some authenticity is lost along the way.
That said, I feel younger creatives are using AI from the very beginning of their training, which can make it harder for them to reach stronger ideas. Because they haven’t experienced the process without this tool, they tend to rely on it too much, which prevents them from reaching results that, for now, only the human mind is capable of producing.
At the same time, I believe AI will continue to evolve and start creating more surprising things from a creative standpoint. I once heard a creative director describe ideas on a scale from 0 to 10. Part of his job, he said, was to take ideas that arrived as a 5, 6, or 7 and turn them into an 8, a 9, or even a 10. At that time, he felt AI was not generating ideas above a 4.
About a year ago, I tested an AI platform that promised to generate three ideas for any brief in just a few minutes. I asked it for ideas for a supermarket campaign, and shortly after I received a presentation with three scripts and storyboards. The first two were very basic, but the third one surprised me. It told the story of a shopping cart that felt empty, even though it had searched for something to fill it across many supermarkets. One day, it visits this particular supermarket and, for the first time, feels fulfilled and experiences a feeling it had never known before.
That idea already contained copy and emotional elements I wasn’t used to seeing from AI. It clearly had potential and could be developed into an 8, a 9. For me, that was proof that AI still has a lot of creative potential to explore.
Your experience on the ADC*RO Awards 2025 jury
Being a juror at a festival outside your own country always comes with a strong sense of responsibility. Since you don’t fully know the market, you have to trust your judgment and try to understand the context in which the ideas were created.
At the ADC*RO Awards 2025, all the jurors were in the same position, which made the discussions very balanced and enriching. Despite the responsibility, it became a truly rewarding experience.
My favorite part of being on a jury is always the discussion with other jurors. I enjoy going in with a clear opinion and then changing my mind after hearing different perspectives. The ADC*RO Awards were no exception.
What surprised you
I was genuinely surprised by the quality of some of the ideas. The one that stood out the most to me was a project for LIDL that encouraged people to look at their fridges as if they were supermarket aisles, as a way to reduce food waste. It went on to win the Grand Prix, and it was very well deserved. It was a simple campaign, but also highly insightful.
How do you perceive Romanian advertising
I didn’t have much prior contact with Romanian advertising, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. After seeing the work at the festival, I felt the market is currently in a growth phase, with several brands investing in strong local campaigns and solid budgets, such as LIDL, Netflix, or McDonald’s.
In terms of ideas, I believe the quality is on par with other European markets. Comparing it to Portugal, which I naturally know better, I think both markets share a challenge when it comes to exporting ideas. Whether due to language or market size, it’s difficult to produce work that gains wide visibility across Europe and globally, especially when compared to countries with higher creative investment.
That path is being built gradually, and as in Portugal, there is growing potential and know-how to create campaigns that can compete with the best in the world.
The effects of recent years on creativity
Creativity is always a reflection of the context we live in. I believe the past few years have influenced advertising in three main ways.
The first is investment. In times of social tension and economic or political instability, investment naturally fluctuates. Brands become more cautious, budgets are adjusted, and that directly impacts the scale and ambition of the work.
The second effect is form. Communication has accelerated its digitalization, but paradoxically, that has made us value traditional media more when it is executed exceptionally well. When advertising appears in classic media with a level of craft above the norm, it tends to stand out precisely because we are so saturated with fast, disposable content.
The third effect is on ideas. Festivals are full of work that aims to save the world, which is not a bad thing. However, we’ve become more attentive and critical about which ideas truly carry value and which ones simply exploit social or political tension.
That awareness has made us more selective, more honest, and more demanding about what we consider meaningful creativity.
The most important creative lessons of the past few years
For me, the most important lesson has been learning to respect everyone’s time, including my own. Our profession is driven by deadlines and constant pressure, but that pressure is often counterproductive to creativity.
Creativity needs freedom and stimulation, and that only happens when we respect life beyond work and stop placing excessive pressure on ourselves.
In recent years, it has become very clear to me that we need to step away from the profession in order to deal with it better. Doing other things matters. Practicing sports, reading widely, playing all kinds of games, talking to people, having a pet, taking a course in something completely different, traveling, resting, whatever brings fulfillment.
The big question you always return to in your work
I constantly question my work. Is what I’m doing good? If I were the brand, would I approve it? Will people like it? Will I like it myself a few years from now? I believe many creatives face these questions with every brief they try to solve.
The question I return to most often today, however, is not about day-to-day work, but about the profession itself. Will I be able to do this for the rest of my professional life? I truly believe we have one of the most unique professions in the world, but sometimes I wonder whether I’ll be able to do this until the day I retire.
When I was younger, I had a recurring fear of running out of ideas. Over time, we learn to live with that ghost and understand that we will always have better and worse ideas throughout our lives.
The question I carry today, though, I’m not sure will ever fully go away.
What would you like to unlearn in 2026
Anxiety.
