Neo Mashigo Masterclass
By Motshewa Khaiyane
“Know your thruth” were the opening words of his presentation. We are still not sure whether that was a spelling error or if there was hidden lesson behind it. Either way, Neo Mashigo’s masterclass was the longest one we have ever been in. For about two and a half hours, the Umuzi recruits sat in rapt silence, taking in the wisdom of one of the most iconic advertising giants of the century. I say this because he is a black and talented Executive Creative Director, something that the advertising industry in South Africa cannot say it has in spades.
He told us everything- every juicy little detail about his life, save for the story about how got involved with I See a Different You. That information will come when the I See a Different You team come to Umuzi for a masterclass. No pressure dudes!
Neo Mashigo was born in Diepkloof, Soweto where he also attended primary school. In high school he studied at Pace, a prestigious school meant to cultivate young leadership for a post-Apartheid South Africa. He grew up wanting to study law but he also knew that he wanted to explore his creative abilities because he loved to write. “I wanted to study law, but l also I knew I wanted to get into creativity, you can feel it, you know.”
He spoke of the importance of preparation and then went on to discuss the idea of ‘going with the flow’. Sure, ‘preparation’ and ‘going with the flow’ sound like contradicting ideas but Neo Mashigo found a way to use his life story as a great example of how to balance these ideas in the real world. Perhaps this is what he meant with ‘Know your thruth’- the importance of planning one’s life and discovering what we want and never losing sight of it. “I always make plans for my life”, he would say occasionally. The flipside to this is that life can never really be predicted and that sometimes we need to loosen the grip and just flow. Having made as many agency moves as he did, it comes as no surprise that this life balance is something he has learned to do well.
Net#work BBDO, FCB and most recently, Ogilvy are just some of the big names under which he has produced award-winning work. And the awards… Think of any major advertising award there is and he has probably won it. He is talented with a touch of arrogance but who wouldn’t be, when you have that many awards sitting on your room divider?
In the end, the big lesson I learned sitting in there was that my place in this industry, as a young black female has no time for my fear and insecurities. So what if my uncles believe I’m employed because I write just write stuff all day long? The important thing is that I get a grip of how I want my future to go and plan and then learn to surrender when life demands it.
Photographs by: Lutendo Malatji
