Melusi Mhlungu is unnervingly open. His frank disposition is underscored by what feels like genuine wonder at the world. Talk to him for an hour over lunch in front of the fire at Food, I Love You Kitchen, Mpho Phalane’s constitution Hill joy of a restaurant, and you will come away feeling as if you had just had a masterclass in “beginner’s mind” — the Buddhist philosophy that says you should approach life afresh, without preconceived baggage and the heavy burden of your ego.
Mhlungu’s candid nature is all the more remarkable because a) he is an advertising executive and the Mad Men trope is fact-based, and b) he has every reason to be a little full of himself given that he is a multiple award-winning creative who has worked at top US agencies and had the uniquely American honour of having his ads for big-name Yank brands such as Budweiser played at the Super Bowl.
And yet here he is telling me about how he put all his worldly cash into an envelope before he left for the US almost 10 years ago — and promptly lost it at OR Tambo. He then had a perfectly understandable crisis of faith. Was this a sign he should not leave South Africa? How was he going to survive in the complete unknown without a dollar to his name?
In the event, he got on the flight, carbo-loaded on aeroplane flood, had a long day of fasting (it was a public holiday when he arrived in the States), and then showed up at the agency that had headhunted him to explain his predicament to the relevant HR person (who is now a dear friend).
“It made me feel very vulnerable to say I was, in fact, a hungry African,” he chuckles.
“Even now, if there’s something I’m not happy with, or if there’s something I just genuinely struggle with, I will 100% tell you, and that’s made me, not only a better person, but also a better creative. It all comes down to honesty — being honest with yourself first. And then your voice will show in your work. Like, yeah, we always talk about creativity, but what’s your creative voice?”
Melusi’s creative voice was forged in Nkandla — you read that right — and Joburg, and it is this duality that best explains the source of his creativity.
“I think, for me, it was a question of belonging to two completely different worlds. And it’s like that even now. The reason I love visiting Nkandla is because I’ll always be that five-year-old kid there. Even with everything I’ve achieved, when I’m in Nkandla it is clear that, at my core, I’m just myself. Nkandla keeps me grounded. And I think Joburg was always great for inspiration — seeing things, you know.
“Jozi is where I am at my most creative, and Nkandla is where I recharge my batteries. It’s the place that really makes me feel human, because sometimes the noise and the craziness and the business and the achievements are what could make me lose myself. The other place grounds me, so I think the two places kind of work hand in hand.”
But it was his open mind and vulnerability that gave him the edge. “I think when I went overseas, I had nothing except my notebook and my open mind. Like, I had never been to Miami, right? But I got an offer to go to this place I’d never been to before, and I knew absolutely nothing about it. But that lack of knowledge may actually have made me a better creative, because I was like a sponge while I was there. I literally had no bar or ceiling or whatever. So I was like, ‘OK, I’m African. I don’t know this place — I can’t be arrogant.’ That gave me a little bit of leeway to make mistakes, which is where the great magic of creating lies, because the more we make mistakes, the more we learn.”
The advertising bug bit him early. “I was always fascinated by the ads on TV. For me, they were like small acts in a play — more like entertainment. I remember watching the Cremora ad (‘It’s not inside ... it’s on top!’) and knowing it word for word. Paying attention to adverts became my thing at home. The ad breaks were my special time, whereas everybody else saw them just as a chance to go to the restroom. For me, it was really time to watch TV. And I think that was always the thing that captured my imagination as a kid. I had a notebook, and I would write down ideas about how to finish adverts. Like, if it’s the Nike ad, then maybe they should do this.”
He knew nothing about the industry, and was registered to study law at Wits, but his aunt suggested he apply to Vega instead. He duly arrived at the campus and took the entrance exam, while wondering why all the other kids were lugging around these huge bags — which he later realised were portfolios. He obviously answered the “52 uses for a match” question with great skill because they accepted him the same day and threw in a scholarship as well, which helped tremendously with the maternal objections to his proposed course of study.
And now, as he likes to say, he still knows nothing about running his own newly launched agency, We Are Bizarre (“Because how bizarre is it to be a young guy from the rurals and find yourself here?”).
But here he is, after having returned from the US to set up the agency and launch its flagship Jozi My Jozi campaign, which aims to renew the inner city. It is this project that drew him back home, after Nando’s Robbie Brozin convinced him he could make a difference with his talent here.
It all makes sense, because the driving force behind his creative energy has always been wanting to come up with ideas that would appeal to his grandmother back in Nkandla. So what will make this campaign to regenerate Johannesburg stick?
“Probably one of the biggest lessons you need to learn as a creative is that you must create from a place of love, a place of honesty, a place of real and true insightful spaces. You can fix the structure of a sentence, but the idea must connect people and worlds. How do you do that? I think it comes from the other side, the rural side. Because it’s about community and people, and people connecting. Like, there was no class in the village — we had to talk to everybody. We’d hang out with everybody.”
It is this sensibility he brings to the campaign, and his agency has already connected corporates such as Standard Bank and the city’s government to various community projects, including one to clean up Nelson Mandela Bridge.
Plus, he is bringing his beginner’s mind to the campaign and to advertising. “There is no other place where you can rearrange things every single day,” he says.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.