“Life is much more fun when you’re creative,” says Fernando Machado, the Brazilian marketing expert responsible for the market success and communication turnaround of iconic brands like Burger King and Dove. We had the chance to hear him speak on the final day of the 2025 edition of Days of Communication. And indeed, creativity (along with rolled-up sleeves) lies behind his success, so it was well worth listening to the advice he shared.
“I’m very optimistic and I love our job,” he revealed, but that doesn’t mean being a marketer is always easy or fun. While creativity does bring a sense of satisfaction, when it moves beyond the private sphere and becomes the foundation of your work-as it is in marketing – it can also become a burden. Expectations are high, while time for creativity is scarce.
“Everyone wants sales, and they want them now – that’s what stifles creativity,” he said, echoing a truth many of us experience all too often. What a relief it is to feel understood. 😊
But there’s no use in complaining. So let’s look at the five key principles he considers most important for today’s marketers—principles that lead to better work and stronger results.
The golden five that helped him are:
1.You need to understand your brand!
The biggest mistake is thinking your brand can change everything—because it can’t. You need to know your brand inside and out in order to shape effective communication. It’s also essential to understand how people interact with your brand.
2. Create a clear brief!
If someone gets bored reading your brief—and you’re only on slide 9—just imagine how unclear the rest must be. I use a one-page brief template and stick to it. A brief should be short and clear so that you can present your idea effectively.
3. Let the idea grow!
What does this mean? Many ideas start small and are easy to kill if you don’t continue developing them. Analyze them, view them from every angle, wait… and when the time is right, revisit and refine them until they shine.
4. Take the biggest risk!
Sometimes, you need to be radical in your expression. How else can you truly explain complex ideas and processes if you don’t venture into risky territory from time to time? (He gave the example of Burger King’s campaign that highlighted the absence of artificial preservatives by showing a decaying burger and documenting its 28-day decomposition on social media.)
5. One team!
In any company or agency, there’s always someone—maybe a lawyer or a finance person—who knows something you don’t, simply because it’s not your field. Their knowledge can support and enrich the development of your idea. Some of the best campaigns I’ve worked on came to life after quality consultations with colleagues.
To highlight the complexity of marketing today, Machado recalled the days when campaigns only involved a TV commercial, followed by the era of KVs and adapting materials across various formats. “Back then, we’d freak out—what’s a KV and how am I supposed to adapt everything? And now, we have so many social platforms with countless formats, and things are even more complex.”
“Everyone in advertising knows how important awareness is—if people become familiar with a brand, they’ll grow to love it and eventually buy it. But results are expected in a very short time, and we’re asked for unrealistic forecasts—how much a company will gain from its marketing investment,” the marketing visionary reminded us. He added that even today he’s not great at forecasting, but he loves experimenting with new ideas and tries to understand what will never change.
“Every market is competitive, and marketing is both an art and a science. Creativity drives results. But when you’re in this business, remember how important it is to get noticed, because without that, there’s no success. Smaller brands especially must keep this in mind—if you’re small, you don’t have the luxury of being boring. The message can be great, the logo can be great, but if it doesn’t work, it simply means it wasn’t right. What really matters is what people talk about, what resonates with them—that’s how you measure your success,” Fernando Machado told his audience of today’s marketers.
