#BehindtheMask: Jack Malepa, creative director at Metropolitan Republic

18 Aug 2021

Jack Malepa was appointed as creative director at Metropolitan Republic in January this year. He has has enjoyed his time in some of the country's leading agencies, both big and small, global and independent. The many years he has had in the industry have been rewarding and the proof can be seen in the plethora of awards he has won, locally and internationally.

Jack Malepa, creative director at Metropolitan Republic

Could you briefly explain what your role entails?

In no particular order...Making love to ideas. Wooing my beloved teams to fall in love over and over, and over, and over again (it’s particularly tricky on briefs they hate). Being the rooster that flexes its neck and willingly places its head on the chopping block.

Partaking in real life Mortal Kombat with clients and client service every day, because you literally have to fight everyone for great ideas to life. My fighting style is empathy, my brutality kindness, and my fatality love. Being the soccer mom who crams the entire agency into an imaginary Caravella and takes everyone on road trips to greatness.

What's really behind your mask - literally and figuratively speaking?

I’m just literally a guy whose real mind lives in his heart. I mean, you have to be a little crazy in love to do this for 14 years. Poppy… one day when I finally hang up my gloves, I’m going to smelt all the metal from over the years and forge a life-sized statue of you – hopefully, there’ll be a black pencil mixed in there too. Figuratively, there’s both a fighter and lover under that mask.

Growing up, what did you want to be?

When I was very young...and damn my father worked hard and we were by no means doing well at all, and so I feel guilty looking back and saying this… but, I’d use his details and order all kinds of fairy-tale books, and they’d get delivered home.

During my primary school years, I’d also pilfer books from the library to build my own personal collection. Eventually, I had a mini-library in my tiny bedroom that I shared with my baby sister, it was filled with every kind of imaginary tale you can imagine – my parents had no idea where the books came from. I used to just want to be a prince who’d fall in love with a princess and live a happily ever after, honestly – that and to one day have a baby daughter…

Secondly, I wanted to write a fairy-tale out of the life I’d live… I suppose it’s why I wound up in advertising… I reckon its why I’ve been writing a legendarium over the years… I don’t know where this damn fairy-tale is leading, but hey, one never knows until the very last page… Is someone reading this?

How did you end up workign in advertising/digital marketing?

I was about 5-6-years-old when I saw an ad showing a kid filling his toy Ferrari with fuel. The Ferrari then sped off on its own and crashed through his bedroom wall. I knew this was the world I wanted to live in, and so I kept asking my parents, “who made that. How did they make that?” I eventually got my answer later in life, my parents too, through watching Generations.

What excites you most about your career?

Right now? In no particular order… The Captain, the Chief Commander, and my beloved teams. Every day feels like tagging along in a Rick and Morty episode, seriously. It’s exhilarating, unexpected, eye-opening, at times hilarious, even dangerous, and always inciting a feeling of waking to live towards what’s not possible in the here and now. I’ve never had a group of people make me feel this way about advertising before. These emotions are illegal…

What has been the highlight of your career?

A personal one. Once I joined an agency that had gone through a 7-year dry spell on the awards front. I was junior-mid and uncomfortable with the prospect of spending my time there not winning. So I pitched an idea for a client the agency didn’t have. My art director and I drove the process, presented it to the client, the idea got made and we won not only awards for it, but the business too. This underpins my philosophy, one can win anywhere no matter the circumstances.

Where are you based during lockdown?

At home mostly. In my mind. In my heart… and occasionally at the office (at this rate, once a month I think).

When you're not busy working, what do you do? How do you socialise these days?

I’m a more one-on-one person, suitable to small and tight-knit crowds - if I absolutely must be amongst a crowd. So I really don’t socialise much. I enjoy personal and more in-depth relations that offer a deeper understanding between myself and the person at the other end of the table. So socialising goes as far as me taking after hours social calls from my team, and yes, this extends to weekends too.

What's the one thing about you that not many people know, but should?

I studied Psychology before dropping it for advertising (yes, I’m a colossal idiot). I also happen to have studied Astrology for well over a decade, and I’m incredibly well versed with both. My life’s passion is observing and studying the human psyche, its behaviour, nature and patterns. I hope to one day establish a private practice that employs these two skillsets. One that offers counselling to the advertising fraternity, and another that provides relationship as well as marriage and family psychology. God knows advertising needs this, the entertainment industry too…