PR / News

Susana Albuquerque: “You’ll never be a creative”

25 March 2021

Susana Albuquerque

Executive Creative Director / Partner at Uzina Lisboa 
President, Clube Criativos Portugal  
 
Susana Albuquerque is Uzina’s Executive Creative Director, a portuguese independent agency based in Lisbon. She’s also the president of the Portuguese Creative Club.

In Uzina, she now works for brands like Aldi, Ikea, Samsung and Santander, among other local brands.

She’s been working in advertising for more than 20 years, mostly in Lisbon and also in Madrid, where she worked for Y&R and DDB. She moved back to Lisbon in 2017.

She has led creative work that was awarded in local and international festivals, and she’s been a jury for Cannes Lions (2005 and 2013), NY Festivals (2014) , ADC (2017), One Show (2019), Golden Drum (2018), El Sol (2005), El Ojo (2009), ADCE (2013), Gerety Awards (2021) and D&AD (2021).

What moves her most as a professional is to solve problems and create work that people care about.
 

“You’ll never be a creative.”

It all started around 1993. I had finished my degree in advertising and I heard there was a media department looking for a trainee. I didn’t think twice. I wanted to be a copywriter, but more than that I wanted to work in an advertising agency.
 
I started as a media planner trainee, meaning I did the clipping while watching media planners do the work. Being a media planner back in those times meant you had to decide if there was enough money to invest in national TV, otherwise you had to stick to print, outdoor and radio. It wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, but at the time, it was new enough for me.
 
Then a merge happened at the agency, the two senior media people resigned and I stayed, waiting and hoping for the opportunity to move into the creative department.
 
Some months later, the agency’s new CEO called me to say how much she appreciated my effort during those chaotic times. I felt it was the right moment to remind her I wanted to be a copywriter. Without a blink, she told be I would never be a creative, not in her agency. If someone was good doing a particular job, she said, and apparently I was good managing the media chaos during the merge, that person wouldn’t be good doing something different. According to this CEO, I could never be a creative because I was a promising media planner.
 
Her words were a shock. I was 22 and I couldn’t be more insecure. I resigned the day after our little chat. To pay the bills, I worked six months in another media agency and after that I got my first job as a copywriter trainee.
 
I was a copywriter for 8 years before I got my first job as a creative director. I’ve been a creative director for 20 years now. That’s how long I am in the business; I had never realized it before today, maybe because I still feel excited with the creative possibilities every time I listen to a good brief.
 
In more than 20 years, I worked for every existing category in advertising. I won and lost pitches, I won clients, I lost clients, and I’m still proud of most of the projects I was involved in. I won awards, I was hired and I hired people, and I learned a lot from both. I was invited to work abroad, I hated the experience, I changed, then I loved the experience, and then I moved back to my country.
 
Since the day I was told I would never be a creative, I worked as a copywriter for Wunderman, Publicis and Bates, and as a creative director for Bates, Lowe, Y&R and DDB.
 
I returned back to Lisbon to lead Uzina, a local agency where I’m now Executive Creative Director and Partner. I’m also the president for the Portuguese Creative Club.
 
I still feel the impostor syndrome most nights when I go to bed. It usually disappears in the morning. I think the impostor syndrome, together with that CEO’s words back in the 90’s, have worked like a reverse coaching for me. They are good fuel pushing me to do good work everyday.
 
I’m thankful for that, for what I’ve done so far and for what I still want to do, which I hope is better. But most of all, I’m thankful for having learned that nobody besides yourself can tell you what you can be or do.
 
So, Teresa, if you ever read this, thank you for the unkind words.