When Maybelline South Africa hosted its Galentines Day experience the buzz did not come from traditional ads or staged shoots. It came from real creators sharing real moments and one of the most influential voices there was South African media personality and content creator Lasizwe Dambuza.
Lasizwe’s rise in the digital world has been steady. He first came into the spotlight with humorous YouTube skits, including his breakthrough content that resonated with young audiences. Over the years that presence expanded into long form creative and personality driven projects. On his YouTube channel audiences have flocked to his content, with his subscriber count passing one million making him one of the few South African creators to reach that milestone.
One of his most popular series on YouTube is Awkward Dates, a dating show format where Lasizwe meets a range of South African personalities in unscripted conversations that are sometimes funny sometimes heartfelt and always candid. The show earned a nomination for Best Online Content at the 2024 South African Film and Television Awards showing how digital content from local creators is gaining recognition alongside mainstream media.
Awkward Dates has featured a range of local talent and public figures with episodes drawing strong engagement from viewers who enjoy seeing familiar faces in new unscripted scenarios. The series also secured strategic brand partnerships like a collaboration with the restaurant chain RocoMamas bringing a lifestyle dimension to the show and giving fans a sense of shared experience with the creator’s content.
At Maybelline’s Galentines Day event creators like Lasizwe carried the energy from the room into their own channels with stories and posts that reached broad audiences online. They showcased iconic products like the Maybelline Super Stay Matte Ink Lipstick in ways that felt natural and not scripted. That helped Maybelline’s message spread beyond the event and into timelines across South Africa.
In the local beauty and makeup industry this is telling. Consumers today respond to authenticity when they decide what to buy and who to trust. Events alone no longer carry the full weight of a campaign. It’s the follow up engagement through real storytellers that helps a brand keep the conversation going. In this sense Maybelline’s Galentines activation became more than an event. It became a platform for genuine creator voice collaboration in the South African market.
