Lesotho bank’s culturally intelligent campaign beats bigger rivals

In doing so, Standard Lesotho Bank saw off competition from the likes of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. 

Standard Lesotho Bank’s Brand and Marketing function led the MOHOHA project, with Palesa Nthlakana, the Head of Brand and Marketing, as project lead.  

The campaign’s strategy and concept were developed by Tšokolo Makeka, Creative and Strategy Director of The Creative Lab, with art direction by Suping Pheko. The Creative Lab team handled rollout, and The PR & Brand Network handled digital and social media campaign communications. 

Before the campaign, the Flexible Funeral Plan sold about 300 policies a month. Within two months of launch it sold 3,234 in a month, a rise of 967%. More than 38,000 policies have been sold since the June 2025 launch, and the bank marked its 10,000th policyholder while the campaign was still in market. 

Owned social channels alone drew close to 1.6 million views and 790,000 reach before creator amplification. 

“The product, its pricing and its distribution did not change. The idea was the only variable,” says a press release from The Creative Lab. 

Funeral cover is the most crowded product category in Lesotho. Banks, insurers, telcos and funeral parlours all sell it, and because the product is culturally non-negotiable, each competes for the same household with the same promise of peace of mind, dignity and affordable premiums. 

While Standard Lesotho Bank’s plan was arguably stronger on its product offering, that did not buy salience in a category where every advertisement looks like an obituary. 

Selling the cow, not the policy 

The Creative Lab’s insight was that in Basotho culture a funeral is not an event. It is an obligation expressed through a single object.  

The Mohoha is the cow slaughtered to feed the mourners, and it is the visible proof that a family fulfilled its duty. Every Mosotho already knows its anatomy, its meaning and its cost. Competitors were selling a policy. Nobody was selling the cow. 

Standard Lesotho Bank’s agency named the campaign MOHOHA and turned the ceremonial bull into the product brochure. Every benefit of the plan was mapped onto the anatomy of the animal in a single benefit map, so a customer who has never read a policy document can read it easily.  

The line ‘Ke Mohoha. E Laoloa Ke Uena.’ translates as ‘Here is the cow. You control it.’ and emphasizes the plan’s real differentiator: the customer chooses the benefits they want, in the customer’s own language. 

Standard Lesotho Bank’s campaign then did something that few financial services brands in Lesotho had done for a full product campaign. It ran 100% in Sesotho across every touchpoint. Billboards, press, branch posters, SMS, radio, creator content and music were written in Sesotho first, not translated. Language was not localisation. It was the creative strategy. 

“The decision to go fully Sesotho was the one everybody warned us about,” says the bank’s Palesa Nthlakana. “It turned out to be the reason the work was trusted. We did not change the product. We changed how the bank spoke, and the market answered in policies.” 

Adds The Creative Lab’s Tšokolo Makeka: “Cultural intelligence is the most underused lever in African financial services marketing. Every market in this region has a ritual object that carries more meaning than a policy document. We found Lesotho’s, and the bank had the conviction to build a whole campaign on it in Sesotho.  

“That conviction is what the [Standard Bank] Group has rewarded. The method travels.”