A graduate of the AAA School of Advertising, Lebo Motshegoa honed his creative skills at some of the country’s leading advertising agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi, Lowe Bull and Ogilvy.
During those early years of democracy, a new generation of ‘black and proud of it’ consumers was emerging, and Lebo soon realised there was an important gap in the marketing communications field. He could see there was a need for smart, creative solutions that would appeal to these new consumers but, as importantly, he knew that the messaging needed to be meaningful.
At about this time, Lebo was offered a position at Y-FM, South Africa’s first black urban pop culture radio station. During his tenure at the station, he was inspired by the language of the youth, and developed the country’s first and only S’camto Dictionary of Township Lingo in 2003. The dictionary proved an invaluable tool for copywriters and art directors, and earned Lebo his first Loerie Awards in 2003 and 2004.
Encouraged by this success, Lebo went on to compile and publish his Township Talk Dictionary in 2005, which was heralded both at home and abroad as a celebration of the country’s diversity and new-found freedom of expression.
These two works offered many opportunities to present Township Talk seminars to corporates and agencies that were eager to learn about the emerging black consumer market, right from LSM 3 through to the so-called ‘black diamonds’.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Lebo soon founded Sowetorock.com, an online magazine that focuses on issues concerning and related to Soweto. He later handed over this project to unemployed Soweto-based communications graduates that he had been mentoring.
Lebo has also shared his unique insights at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, UNISA, the AAA School of Advertising, Wits University and Vega. He is a regular guest on Maggs on Media, SAfm, Radio 702 and Metro FM, and is a weekly columnist for Daily Sun. His Kasi-fied , Fast and Furious, SunLife and Tsa Kasi columns have a large and loyal following.
In 2004, Lebo founded Foshizi, a black consumer insights agency. Since then, the agency has serviced a diverse client list including, amongst others, Vodacom, KFC, Standard Bank, SABC, Toyota, Absa, Nando’s, MTN, MultiChoice, SARS and Tiger Brands.
Today, Foshizi’s network of field marketers are active in all nine provinces and, through formal partnerships, the agency also conducts research in Nigeria and Kenya.