Mike Jacobson: [00:00:00] Really 70% of magic is the presentation, and 30% is the trick. That is actually like the crux of a good trick. You want people to go, where is this going? And it doesn't happen always, but the best tricks are the ones where you're kind of reeling 'em in slowly and surely and then you're like, yes, Uhhuh, Uhhuh, no wait, how?

Chris Kocek: Welcome to any insights yet the podcast that explores the intersection of strategy, inspiration, and branding. I'm Chris Kocek. On today's episode, we explore what magic, mentalism and marketing have in common, and we do that with consultant strategist and world renowned magician, Mike Jacobson or Magic Mike, as he's known on Instagram.

Long before he wowed audiences on America's Got Talent with an invisible deck of cards, Mike understood the power of words and stories to hold people's attention. In 2008, Mike combined his passion for magic and storytelling at [00:01:00] 72 and Sunny in Los Angeles, where he worked on brands like Google, Carl's Jr., Call of Duty and more. In recent years, he's led social strategy on such brands as Oreo and Subway and led campaign strategy across Comedy Central, Paramount Network and other MTV entertainment networks. But this interview is less about specific brands or brand activations. During my conversation with Mike, we explore the importance of priming and what it takes to get people to give you their undivided attention, especially in this era of shorter and shorter attention spans.

It turns out great magic, like great marketing, is less about tricks and more about the setup, the presentation, the prologue. In other words, all the stuff you do before the performance, the pitch or the ad even begins. What really stood out to me during this conversation was what magic can teach us about the importance of mystery in modern marketing and how we can bring that sense of awe and wonder into the work we do every day.[00:02:00] 

Ready for some magic? Let's get into it.

Magic mentalism marketing. What do these three things have in common? 

Mike Jacobson: To me, it's all about the audience, like, all you're really doing in magic especially, but then also in strategy marketing, mentalism is figuring out what people are thinking and why and then using it to your advantage in some way.

Strategy is really about that, right, because all we're trying to understand is like audience insights upfront, understanding what their relationship is to a product or brand or whatever the thing is and then like trying to move them to some other thought or feeling or decision that they need to make and magic and mentalism are exactly the same thing, and I think kind of tangentially related to that too, you know, the definition of “entertain” is to hold attention and so a magician's role is to, to entertain via the medium of deception, you know, I like to joke that like if that's not [00:03:00] advertising, I don't know what it is, but it's not about like figuring out a cool way to sneak a ball under the cup, it's getting people to care that it went under the cup. So, to understand where they're at, meet them where they're at, and try to slowly move them is really what we're doing in all three, you know, magic mentalism and, and marketing. 

Chris Kocek: So you just said magic and mentalism, they're the same thing. Are there any differences between the two?

Mike Jacobson: Yeah, so the way I think about it is that magic is with props and mentalism is with thoughts. And so, whereas magic is, you know, changing $1 bills and a hundred dollars bills, mentalism is revealing your first kiss or your code to your iPhone or something like that. In the magic world, it's funny because half of the group thinks there's a very big difference that you can't be a magician and a mentalist, you know, if you do mentalism things, it feels so real 'cause you're taking thoughts from people that if you did a trick, tricky trick, after that it feels, it kind of makes everything feel cheaper. But to me it's all about like entertaining people and I [00:04:00] don't really care about the definition of it. I'm like, it's all kind of on a spectrum, I think. That's like magic to mentalism and in between that it's all about entertaining and on and joy and a well-placed lie every once in a while, you know? 

Chris Kocek: That's very interesting. We're gonna probably return to the well-placed lie, right? What do you think is the hardest or the trickiest part when it comes to doing magic,Is it coming up with a trick? Is it thinking through the different steps? Is it, you mentioned, having the right audience?

Mike Jacobson: I would say that the trickiest part is actually like the R&D. It's long and at times arduous. You're really collecting not only tricks and ideas from everywhere, but presentation ideas from everywhere too.

It could be in a grocery store or it could be a weird story that you were told, or it could be a YouTube video, whatever, on the presentation side. And then on the tricks side, there's an endless amount of magic that has been invented and thought about forever up until right now and then there's [00:05:00] also this crazy proliferation of magic ideas in the world that is now spread faster than ever via the internet, of course. And so let's say I learn a hundred things over a year and I try 20 of them or 10 of them and really only two stick or one stick, if that, kind of finding that intersection of like a cool effect to kind of fits your personal style and then, you know, a presentation that makes people care, keeps them interested is kind of tough to find.

And so, you know, on top of all that, the other layer is that on average I need to win someone over in like 15 seconds or 30 seconds or something. You know, a lot of my magic that I'm doing is at a cocktail party or a wedding or a 50th birthday or whatever, birthday party or whatever. So I'm walking around a room doing magic under people's noses and so I'm not always introduced in advance. Most of the time I'm not, and so I have to, like, win people over very quickly. So that's the other piece of it is like understanding [00:06:00] what the effect is, where it can fit within my repertoire, and then is it that usable on a daily basis. Otherwise, I'm just gonna do the same stuff I've done forever that is works well, you know. 

Chris Kocek: You said you have to win people over in 15 to 30 seconds. Is there a line or two that you like to use to build what I like to call the trust bridge? 

Mike Jacobson: You know, it's funny, I've played with this over time and a lot of magicians discuss the best way to do that within Strolling Magic, and I don't feel like I've necessarily cracked it, but what I've been enjoying just doing in the last couple years is going up to a group and just introducing myself and like shoving my hand into their hands and shaking hands, introducing myself and not saying anything else yet, and just being like, “Hi, I'm Mike.”

And, and you'd be surprised at the, the curiosity that gets inspired and the weirdness that starts to happen. But then people kind of turn really quickly and are on your side because in an average party situation, you're not introduced by [00:07:00] someone random by themselves. Usually someone else introduces you.

And so by the time I go around, I've stopped this conversation and I've gone around to four or five people and shook all of their hands, they're like, either, this guy's super weird or he is gonna show us something interesting or ask us something interesting or he's someone important. That helps me because they're on my side, like I'm a regular human as opposed to like, “Hi, I am the magician, can I show you guys something?” And then expectations are kind of all over the place or they're like, sure, sure, dance monkey boy. So I prefer to create some sort of connection with them first. But there's a couple other things like my friend does this thing that I kind of love, that I would love to try, which is like going into the group and be like, “Hey guys, I have bad news and good news. Bad news, there's a magician here. Good news, it's me” or something like that, you know, it's like playing with 'em in some way. I've also gone into a group and just been like, “Any of you guys drop this?” and it's like $5 bills and everyone says no, and then I change 'em into hundreds and then they realize what I'm doing there.

So I still honestly play around with that. It really depends [00:08:00] on the audience too, you know, it's totally different if it's like a family party versus a corporate office versus a summer party versus an agency party versus a religious event or something like that. 

Chris Kocek: Tell me a little bit more about that. If you're at an agency party versus an anniversary. 

Mike Jacobson: Yeah. At an agency party. I think I'm trying to connect with 'em more as a, like, I'm cool like you guys, I get it. Like you guys we're all kind of the same people talk about culture, like speak in the way that we all speak at work or whatever, versus at a 50th anniversary or something like that, I'm gonna be a lot more formal or I'm going up at everyone and shaking hands or whatever else you're trying to get the host to kind of introduce me or whatever. It's hard to actually say broadly, but there's definitely like a tone that I'm using that's different when it comes to agency people who I feel like are my own versus people that I don't know as well or, and also people from at a 50th [00:09:00] anniversary, it might be people from tons of different backgrounds. You don't know if they're creative people or not. You don't know what they do, where they're from, whatever versus agency people, I'm like, I know exactly what turns you on and what gets you excited and why you're all here and you're all make, you're all here to make cool things and you all feel like you're connected in culture and everything else. I kind of feed into that, I think. 

Chris Kocek: So, by comparison, what's the hardest or trickiest part when it comes to marketing? Is it asking the right questions? Is it finding the right data? You mentioned R&D for magic. Is it also R&D for strategy and for marketing? 

Mike Jacobson: It's interesting. I think the easiest part to me is the selling part.

It's really the making that is the hardest. Converting a kind of compelling strategy into a compelling creative execution is just inherently hard. My dream is for the creative to completely deliver on a strategy, but that's obviously hard to do in and of itself. But that's also my, my favorite part of the process, like trying to inspire creative team in the right way, [00:10:00] then being a part of that creative process to make something awesome that also is effective and and works is the fun of it. Strategy and creative are kind of like two different yet related languages like Spanish and Italian, right, they're like both romance languages, both based in Latin, but just different enough where you have to figure out where that overlap is.

We can brief the perfect strategies all we want, but if it doesn't inspire a creative team to do something or create something that lives up to it, then the strategy, or at least the brief is inherently off. So I feel like that's the hardest part. 

Chris Kocek: Do you bring your presentation skills from magic or mentalism into the briefing room with you? How do you brief teams? 

Mike Jacobson: I think I inherently do without realizing it, you know, 'cause I think a lot of magic is context and priming people and presentation. And so the thing that first comes to mind is I want everyone to be in the right [00:11:00] mindset when I'm going to show them something interesting or something cool. I want their, their guards to also be down and so in the same vein, I think when I'm doing a presentation, whether it's a briefing or a client presentation, I'm trying, I think, inadvertently to get people on that, right, either that right headspace, and that might be with content or with music or the way that we set up the room or whatever the thing is in the same way that like with a trick, I go in around and I'm introducing myself first, so that maybe they have their guards a little bit lower and then hopefully can be more entertained later or next, whenever I do next. 

Chris Kocek: You just mentioned priming, which is something I was hoping to talk with you about. So I don't know if you just primed me or if I'm about to prime you. I may or 

Mike Jacobson: May not have just primed you for the priming, but now you noticed, so… 

Chris Kocek: So priming is a very important part of magic, right? What are one or two [00:12:00] great examples of priming that you might use in some of your magic work at a particular event?

Mike Jacobson: Yeah, it's funny, like, or I guess like priming is like 30% of the secret sauce in like a magician's kitchen. I can't really go into the my favorite tried and true examples, but it's all about setting the stage in the audience mind before the trick even begins. So I'll be setting up a trick far before you think the setup is happening.

To do that though, we especially like to use verbal cues. Like an easy example would be “okay, let's start,” and then people are only focusing on what happens after that versus thinking about what happened before that. This is similar to kind of needing to prime the room or an audience when you're doing a pitch 'cause like the pitch starts before the pitch even begins, you know, pitch is happening in the emails before you even get in person. It's happening when people are walking in the room. How are people feeling? What are they thinking? Do they like the people that they're talking to? everything else. And so I think a lot about [00:13:00] that and then the other side of that coin is framing and, and that's an important part of magic too 'cause it's, all of our word choices are used as a way to not only frame up what you feel like the magic is, but to frame the memory of the trick too. I think about both the priming pre and the framing during, especially of a pitch or or briefing or whatever, in the same way that that magic happens. 

You know, I think the layer on top of all of this is that really 70% of magic is the presentation, and 30% is the trick. If I have you pick a card and you shuffle it, and I go, okay, is this your card, the ace of hearts? You go, “yeah.” It's a, it's a four out of 10 trick. If I do the same exact trick and I go put the card back in there, shuffle it, “Now, is there any way that if I put this behind my back, that I could find your card?” “No.” “And within three seconds, that would be even more impossible, that the impossibility of finding your card.” “No.” “Right, so check this out. [00:14:00] Boom. Count to three. 1, 2, 3. I was actually two seconds. Harder to do, but interesting.”

“Now, for the very first time, what was a card you thought of? Ace of Hearts. Boom.” I turned it around. “Ace of Hearts.” It's not a great trick, but at least it's a six already, you know? And then I, and I also said, “What was a card you thought of?” then later on, even though you chose that card in a year when you go, “Mike did a trick to me. I thought of a card and he had it behind his back.” That is part of the magic and so that whole presentation matters a lot and I think it's the same for advertising, but especially on the internal side when we're trying to do everything we do to get to the creative work. 

Chris Kocek: What would make that trick go up to an eight or a 10? Would it be lighting something on fire or what? What? How do you elevate it? 

Mike Jacobson: There's actually research on this that shows that a big element of what makes a trick entertaining is surprise. So it would need to include at least some sort of, what we call in the game, a kicker, which is like a surprise extra ending that you didn't think was coming, you know, like pick a [00:15:00] pocket and you point to my left pocket, like, “there's another ace.” “Oh, pick another pocket.” I don't know. And then there's like, I have all four ACEs on me and I couldn't have known that You're gonna say the ace of hearts, let alone any of the ACEs, let alone that I would already have all four of them in my pockets or whatever. Much better trick than just finding a card in some way, you know? 

Chris Kocek: So when it comes to a marketing campaign, right, is priming also important to getting end customers to have that level of surprise and delight? 

Mike Jacobson: That's a good question. I think surprise and delight is like incredibly important for a brand to deliver to people, like, that is when you create the deepest connections.

I think a lot about, especially when it comes to priming and how that works in magic versus advertising, that idea of like hot states versus cold states, and we're always trying to look or get someone in a hot state in advertising, right, so like if you advertise a Honda Civic on YouTube, 50/50 [00:16:00] shot, it's ignored. But if you advertise that same Honda Civic in a movie theater coming out of the next Fast and the Furious, much more into it and much more, you're in a hot state, you're ready. You're like looking for that. You're already entertained by a Honda Civic or whatever that thing might be. 

Chris Kocek: Yeah. I mean you, you seem to be getting at the idea of media placement and how important that is. Right time, right place, right message, right audience, 

Mike Jacobson: Yes. 

Chris Kocek: That's a media priming component. 

Mike Jacobson: Exactly. And also that relates back to magic too, because not every trick or not every effect works for every audience and so there's totally different things that I would do for old people versus young people.

You know, if I go to a Bar mitzvah, you've got adults, it's fine. But with kids that are rambunctious and 13 year olds, and the girls are separated from the boys, then they all have their phones out, I'd much rather do something that's like A, with their phone 'cause they already have it and then them taking it away and it's not something that I can affect because it's their phone and it's their property, or B, maybe something that is [00:17:00] between the guys and the girls or whatever. Versus if I'm doing a, you know, a wedding, maybe I'll do magic that's around love. Or you know, easy example, I can't do tricks with phones necessarily to anyone above 60, I don't love to because I'm like, half of them might need to get glasses out and then it's like, oh, I gotta search for something, and then that's already stressful.

I'd rather just have them think of something or write something down or just do something with cards 'cause it's a little bit easier to see, you know? 

Chris Kocek: Well, I know that brands struggle with the attention situation these days, right, I mean, you're on TikTok, you're on social media and you swipe within seconds, milliseconds. Do you feel like, because of social media, because of the quick swipe, is that hampering or helping magic for you? 

Mike Jacobson: Wow, that's such a good question. You know, I think it's mostly just evolved how I present stuff. I'm probably going faster. I'm trying to win them over faster. A lot of people talk about how [00:18:00] attention spans are dwindling, and I think that's a fair argument, but the other side of that argument is that consideration spans are shortening, and so as long as you're doing something interesting and creating some curiosity and creating some surprise or have some cred coming into a conversation or campaign or whatever, that's really what I'm trying to get at is make people consider me faster rather than pay more attention. I, it's all, it's kind of picking apart, kind of nitpicking a little bit, but, you know, one of my favorite things in magic is getting kind of social validation, I guess, in some way where it's, I love to, when I'm starting at a party, I'll try to go, I'll start at the group that I think is the biggest and the loudest or might have the most fun so that other people at the party hear something.

Is going on so that I come into their group with a little bit more cred or at least some curiosity about like, what's this guy gonna do? And like, why is he here? And I think the same thing goes [00:19:00] for brands, you know, like needing some, some of that like social cred in some way. I've gone down a path. Now that doesn't answer your question, but 

Chris Kocek: No, no, it's interesting because it's a challenging thing.

I mean, you've got so many things vying for attention. Everybody has a phone on them these days, and if you're bored, I mean, teachers experience this as well. Like if I'm not entertaining the class or really holding their attention, there's always a million other things that people can turn to. So I would imagine your job is just as hard as brands who are trying to grab somebody's attention, hold it, keep it there long enough that they can get to the reveal.

Mike Jacobson: Totally. That is actually like the crux of a good trick and understanding how to present magic in a good way is the process and the time and the presentation of the process of the trick gonna pay off the actual trick itself and understanding that balance and trying to make it [00:20:00] so that either so it doesn't feel like a long process, that you're entertained enough the whole time during this, the three minute setup to make the trick like that much more magical feeling.

Yeah, it's, it's something that's like al always in my head. 

Chris Kocek: That's interesting. Well, you're making me think of the idea of mystery. There has to be a certain amount of mystery and you have to have the breadcrumb trails spaced apart, just far enough to keep pulling them along. 

Mike Jacobson: You want people to go, “Where is this going?” And it doesn't happen always in every single trick, it doesn't have to, but the best tricks are the ones where people are kind of like, yeah, you're kind of reeling 'em in slowly and surely. And then you're like, “Yes, Uhhuh, Uhhuh. No, wait. How?” And then, you know, kind of hopefully minds are blown. 

Chris Kocek: Yeah. And there's a tension with brands though, because, I mean, I remember working on the Lowe's home improvement business, and they always wanted to start the commercials with the Lowe's logo in the front 'cause they want people to know who this is coming from but I feel like with audiences today, it's like, oh, [00:21:00] this is an ad. Whereas if you can have a little bit of weirdness, a little bit of mystery in the upfront, it's gotta be just the right amount and for only so long it pulls people in. 

Mike Jacobson: You know, it's interesting related to this, when I was at Comedy Central and, and across the Paramount networks and Viacom, CBS, that whole world, we did some trailer testing. One of the most interesting finds to me was the most effective trailers and pieces of content, or most memorable ones, had a logo or a reveal of what the content was at the peak of the trailer. So like it would be like a cold open, and then you watch some sort of story for 10 seconds, 12 seconds, and at the peak of your interest, or somewhere in the middle of that 30 seconds trailer is when you would do the logo for Jersey Shore or like whatever the show is going to be, a broad city or whatever. Those pieces of content were far more effective than the ones that we would do the logo first. [00:22:00] And you know, a part of that is inherently in a TikTok world, people don't wanna feel like the ads are ads and so the ones that don't feel the least like ads are the ones that are gonna be the most effective at this point.

I always think back to how TikTok talks about don't make ads, make tiktoks. And I think that's almost applicable to everything that we create now. It's like, don't make an ad, make content that happens to be an ad. 

Chris Kocek: Well, the thing about movie trailers makes me think of, I've seen lately, I don't know if I'm just watching the wrong movie trailers or the right ones, but so many movie trailers I've been seeing lately have like a five second pre-roll, like the, just this crazy mashup of action and stuff and then it says the trailer is about to begin. 

Mike Jacobson: Yes, totally. It's, it's that Tarantino like seeing the end then going backwards and it gets me, it gets me, I'm like, uhhuh, yes, okay, craziness about to happen, I'm in. 

Chris Kocek: So I, I've seen your performance on America's Got Talent. You are a very confident performer. All of the hosts, Simon, Sophia, Heidi, Howie, [00:23:00] when they cut to the entire audience, everybody is just glued to what you're gonna do next, they cannot take their eyes off of you. When you're working on a performance like the one you did on America's Got Talent, how do you practice for that? Do you practice alone? Do you practice with a friend? What does that process look like? 

Mike Jacobson: So the process for the show is actually fairly different from my normal process. For the show, they asked me to do one of those tricks, which I ended up tweaking and then adding a second layer to. And then once they pitched that up the chain and approve that, then you go back and you send them a video of exactly how you'd perform it with hopefully four people in front of you, like judges, and then they give you feedback on that and they make you send that video over and over. So I sent like four versions of that. I had more layers and more story and things that I felt like were more me, and they're like, can you just do the trick please?

So for that, both of the things that I did were [00:24:00] things that I've done that I felt really confident in. It was more about practicing the scripting 'cause ccripting's so important. In terms of what I'm delivering since, especially when it comes to tv, you only have so much time, they want it to be succinct.

So a lot of that was like writing that, saying it to myself, practicing it with my wife, and then just saying it to myself over and over and over. But in regular world, it's funny, it's a weird dance and delicate dance to understand how and where to practice because especially as someone who's not an amateur, people have expectations of what they're seeing for me.

So I have to find low stakes audiences to practice on. And it's funny, when I envisioned marrying someone, and especially my wife, whose creative opinion I love, I assume that I would kind of just like break it open and have someone to practice on who would just probably inevitably learn everything that I know and how it all works.

But she loves magic so much that she doesn't wanna learn any of that, [00:25:00] so I can't practice on her. And then there's a core group of my friends that I want the magic that I do to them to feel cool and work and everything else. So I, I can't practice on them because I want it to be kind of worked through, figured out by the time I get to them. So then it ends up being this tertiary circle of randos that could be anyone from a coffee shop to someone who's a friend of a friend to try kind of little pieces on. And then the other part of that is like if I'm doing something that needs to be for a group of 40 or more, that's the hardest group. I'm still trying to figure out where to do that, you know, theoretically you're, you know, you're supposed to go to like a rotary, like groups or whatever, if those even exist, or like some old people's homes or I don't know, some open mic nights, but I've actually yet to crack great places to do that, you know, if you're doing it matter of show that people are already paying for, especially my own, I don't really wanna practice too much stuff, so the only thing I'll do, if anything, is [00:26:00] integrate one little thing into a thing that I've learned, I already know that works really well just to see if that works, but it's tough. 

Chris Kocek: It sounds a lot like standup comedy from what I've read. A lot of well-known performers, they go to smaller clubs and they practice and practice and practice. And then, you know, they, they get it down to the most concentrated version and then they're ready for their Netflix or their HBO special. 

Mike Jacobson: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. 

Chris Kocek: Do you record yourself or do you have somebody record you so you can see what you're doing?

Mike Jacobson: I should, and I don't, you know, you know, historically, the majority of what I've done in the last 20 years is closeup magic, so it's things under people's noses, and in that format you can improvise, but on stage it's a little bit different, and I'm starting to build that show. Right now, I kind of max out at about 30 or 40 people. I just like it to be more intimate, but I do get a lot of inquiries for bigger shows, so I'm trying to build that out as well, just so I have [00:27:00] that as an offering since I already get the inquiries for it. 

Chris Kocek: There's such an interesting dynamic between being confident, which you have to bring to magic, but there's also a casual component to it as well, 'cause you have to be approachable. 

Mike Jacobson: Yeah, a hundred percent. That's a really astute observation too 'cause I think if you're overconfident then you're kind of annoying. The best magic should be presented as if you're kind of randomly thinking about it right now, you're just presenting it off the cuff, any scripting should feel casual and off the cuff too.

So there's that delicate dance between those two things that I think we're always trying to find, especially in the stuff that I'm doing. 

Chris Kocek: So bringing it back to marketing and strategy, the element of surprise when you're gonna sell in a strategy to the client, not just to your creative team, but if you're right there in front of a client and you're giving them a recommendation that you believe is going to, you know, just, blow everybody's socks off strategically, It's [00:28:00] a great springboard for a creative concept, but it's strategically rooted in this, this, and this. How do you give that element of surprise? Do you hold things back? What's the overlap in the process between the two things? 

Mike Jacobson: I'd actually argue that the strategy shouldn't be surprising, but maybe the creative should be in some way.

I always like to say when I'm working on a brief, I'll bring it to a creative team early and just be like, “Guys, I don't need this to be a surprise party.” I want everyone to have seen this stuff, I want everyone to be head nodding in this briefing so that you're all on board, you're excited about the thing, I don't wanna bring you something that you're not excited about. And so when it comes to client work, I would actually argue that I'd rather more head nods and more like, “Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.” This is a finer point on a thing we've been circling around, rather than like a surprising, strategic idea, you know, is my dream that it would be surprising something they'd never thought of? Yeah. [00:29:00] Hopefully at least the, let's say there's a strategy line or, or the weigh in might be like slightly surprising, but it shouldn't really feel that surprising, it should feel really logical, but in a way, you know how like the best ads, you're like, oh, of course, you know, I think that's how strategy should feel.

Chris Kocek: Is there a question or two that you like to ask in the beginning of any strategy project when you're being briefed by a client or you're first getting to know a client? 

Mike Jacobson: Yeah. The main one I think about is what's the actual business problem we're trying to solve? That actually might be something that I do by myself, but that's the thing I'm trying to get at.

I might not ask them that specifically, but I think following the money is really important. If, if we have a whole brief that is off of a business problem, that is the wrong business problem, Then everything else is gonna be wrong too. But I think one of my favorite things to ask is just what keeps them up at night usually get to like some sort of interesting insight from just their daily [00:30:00] life internally and whatever they're building.

The other side of that, occasionally the right client is, is asking what's the dream headline? I love to work on work that is gonna make some sort of splash in some way. That's stuff I prefer to work on or is like I'm excited to work on. So if it's that kind of client or that kind of ask, it's interesting to see. Now, sometimes you'll glean some sort of interesting truth or thing that they're searching for, they haven't told you yet, you know? 

Chris Kocek: Back to magic, what drew you to magic in the first place? Do you remember a moment? Do you remember seeing a magician and being like, I wanna do that?

Mike Jacobson: Yeah, I was at a camp when I was nine.

There was a random kid's magician on stage, and at the end he gave everyone a piece of string that was tied into a circle, showed us all how to pull that string or make it look like that string was going through our neck. So you pull from behind through. And I did this trip everywhere I went and every adult acted so impressed.

They weren't, but I thought they were and I was like, this is cool, like, I'm a 9-year-old in a world of 40 year olds telling me what to do, and I have this like secret. And [00:31:00] the secret that I have over them or some sort of power that I have over them. That's kind of cool. What it also started, I was a really shy kid.

I was just, I would hide behind my, my dad's leg. And I think what ended up happening is having a secret and also having, you know, kids go to art camps to like get outta their shell and stuff like that, or, or a drama camp to kind of do that. Magic is really cool because an art camp or a drama camp is a little reliant on your abilities. And magic is also abilities too, but magic is like, here's a finite trick from beginning to end, just do the trick. And so you have this thing to show people that if you've learned it, hopefully it'll work okay. So that helped me kind of get to people, talk to people more, feel more comfortable. And I think what the, everything started to shift into, and why I love magic now is just being able to give childlike awe to people.

You know, we're, we're born with it. It goes away really quickly. We're like jaded by the world, and it's not [00:32:00] really every day that you get to feel that “How could something possibly happen?” Of course, now it's a part of the joy for me is the business of it, capitalism and making money. But the core of it is that that kind of like childlike odd that I get to get people.

Chris Kocek: There's this fascinating, I don't know, catch 22 or conundrum where most of the time people don't like being confused, but you have an ability to make people confused and like it. 

Mike Jacobson: Yeah, that's right. That's a great call. Yeah. I love that. 

Chris Kocek: It's so strange. Now you got started in advertising in around 2008, and you were telling me how you were interviewing an agency called 72 and Sunny, and you said it was the worst interview ever, but you ended up turning it around with a magic trick. 

Mike Jacobson: That's right. 

Chris Kocek: What made the interview so bad in the first place and how did magic save the day? 

Mike Jacobson: It was mostly about, you know, looking back, I don't know if you ever looked back at your own text messages or Facebook posts or whatever else where you're like [00:33:00] kind of cringey.

That's really what it felt like. I went in there really wanting to be a creative, and I came in with one drawing on Microsoft paint of an ad for XM radio of like the whole little city, and then it was a square, like out of home ad about no ads. Just that, just that one thing. Basically, I was super nervous.

They were super cool and on the come up and I like went out and I realized basically halfway through, like my, not only was my fly down, but I think my belt had been unbuckled this whole time and I showed this like, you know, big creative director and the big senior writer or designer, kind of this one ad, which I felt confident at the time, but looking back I was like “Wow.” I can't either, I didn't realize how they actually felt or kind of like the magic trick or maybe they were just being nice, I don't know what it was, but I was like, and that was embarrassing that I even presented that to them. We had a [00:34:00] good chat, but I was like, clearly I was not creative material.

And then at the end I suggested like, can I show you guys something? And that really impressed them and they're like, can we show someone else? Like, you know Jason Norcross? And we're like, yeah, sure. And Jason was like the head creative there at the time. So we went downstairs, showed it to Jason, and maybe there was even a third person eventually, and they were like, “Oh, that was cool.”

And then, I was like, well, at least I did magic and redeemed myself and kind of went out there, didn't hear from him for a couple weeks, and then eventually got like an email being like, do you want an intern? I'm like, “Okay.” I was there when there was 20 people there, 30 people there. For the first three, six months that we were there, every time that new people would be onboarded and be introduced to all 30 people, I would do a magic trick also, kind of like commemorating them. So it worked out okay in the end. 

Chris Kocek: That's a good story. Since your time at 72 and Sunny, you've worked in a lot of different places, Comedy Central, you've done digital strategy, you've touched a lot of different areas [00:35:00] of marketing in your various roles. Is there a skill or a technique or even a mindset that has helped you be successful in these roles?

Mike Jacobson: Two things come to mind. One is having no ego. Ego drives a lot of this industry in some capacity. I think there's probably a converse relationship to ego and work and great work or effective work. I try my best to never be precious about things and having ego throughout the process, but I think, when I think about like a thing that helps develop successful campaigns, I think that people underestimate partnership and it's always been a big or an important thing to me to partner with creatives and feel like a partner and to feel like I've earned their trust and for them to be able to come to me with questions or feel like I'm on their side and feel like I'm gonna support them, you know, because I think a lot of people say [00:36:00] it's all about relationships when it comes to networking and being a professional in the world. But I'd argue like the success of a campaign is also based on the relationships too, right?

Like a relationship of a strategist to senior leadership, to a creative team, to a client, like great work just doesn't happen without great relationships. I think about that a lot and I think within that, the other thing I think about is just being nice to people. Like, I pride myself on being a world class cheerleader, maybe to a fault sometimes, and bringing positivity and joy in some capacity, or at least like a “yes, and” mentality to teams and I think that has come back and helped me years later. So many times, like anything that's good that's happened in my life is just because I've been fun to be around, probably, or like nice to people, I think. 

Chris Kocek: Okay. I need to pause for a second here because,  something happened at various points during this interview.

Mike Jacobson: Yeah. 

Chris Kocek: When you were talking about doing magic in front of a group of teens, with, and they've got their phones out. A little bubble [00:37:00] came up on your screen with a little like button, yes, a little thumbs up. And when you were talking about the situation at 72 and sunny Fireworks went off behind you.

Mike Jacobson: They did.

Chris Kocek: As you were talking, part of my brain was like, this has never happened before in an interview. 

Mike Jacobson: Has it never? 

Chris Kocek: This has never happened before in an interview. How is this happening on your screen? 

Mike Jacobson: I wish I could say anything but magic but I do feel like I have to leave it at that. But, I think if you also put a thumbs up, you also get a thumbs up on your side.

Nope, nope. It's just you have to be a wizard. Yeah, sorry. That's so funny. 

Chris Kocek: I'm curious, were you like, is Chris ever gonna mention this or is he just gonna keep going? 

Mike Jacobson: No, 'cause it keeps happening in random other meetings that I've been in, it's like there's some secret things that you do. 

Chris Kocek: It was so crazy. I mean, I saw it [00:38:00] and I was like, well, he's talking, I wanna interrupt him right now. But then fireworks went off behind your head and I was like, that's really cool. This is magical. 

Mike Jacobson: I'm really, uh, I assumed it happened all the time. 

Chris Kocek: So we got our speed round. Ready? Speed round questions. What was your favorite subject in school?

Mike Jacobson: Spanish. 

Chris Kocek: Is there a brand whose work you admire or that you think to yourself? I wish I'd come up with that. 

Mike Jacobson: I hate to over admit. I mean, everyone's talking about it. I'm, I'm obsessed with Liquid Death. I just love that they get a creative platform to do fun things in the world. But Dramamine, just dropped an amazing documentary, The Last Barf Bag, that I thought, this made me really appreciate them in a new light and I just love fun branded content like that 

Chris Kocek: Dramamine created something called The Last Barf Bag?

Mike Jacobson: Yeah. One of those creative, like, amazing creative ideas where the product is at the center without it, without them hitting you over the head with it, you know? It's like empowering the story as opposed to the, this is the only story. [00:39:00] Basically, they talk about how, like they spent the last 75 years perfecting the art of nausea prevention. But unfortunately, that pursuit has led to an unintended side effect, which is, barf bags don't have as much barf to catch anymore and the industry has been impacted and I think, and then they go into, there are these people that collect barf bags from different airlines and it's really fascinating. 

Chris Kocek: And so that's an ad or that's like a, a mini documentary. 

Mike Jacobson: Both. Yeah. 

Chris Kocek: Okay. Okay. What's a movie that you've seen recently that you thought was absolutely amazing that you think everyone else should see?

Mike Jacobson: I'm very biased, but I worked on Dune Two and it was as good as hyped. But on the other side of that, the one that comes to mind, I just watched the Steve Martin documentary on Apple Plus, which was really cool. I love him. My business card is based on an idea from him, my magic business card, and it just shows how kind of revelatory he was and reveals how much of a legend he was in his own right for his time that I don't think I kind of realized. 

Chris Kocek: I've been watching his masterclass on comedy.

Mike Jacobson: Oh yeah. Yeah, [00:40:00] that's cool. 

Chris Kocek: It's fascinating. And what's a question you always get asked as a magician?

Mike Jacobson: “How do I do it?” Or the other top one is, “Can you make my wife disappear? Tale as late as time.

Chris Kocek: It's a bad, bad dad joke, bad spouse joke. 

Mike Jacobson: Yeah. Yeah. I'm still working on my good response. My favorite one is, that costs extra, but I'm still working on it. 

Chris Kocek: And what's a piece of advice someone gave you that you still remember to this day, whether in magic or marketing, you still remember to this day that influences your work in both magic and marketing?

Mike Jacobson: The idea that memories are based on three things, the beginning, the middle peak, and the end. Your brain just fills in the rest. It doesn't even matter what the rest is. So as long as the beginning is super strong and you have some sort of crazy memorable thing at the middle of both the presentation, a campaign, magic trick, and then the ending.

That's all you really need to lock [00:41:00] down. And I think that's, because it's like a shortcut to memories and alongside that kind of the end, someone said “How it ends is how it was,” and I thought that was really an astute observation too. 

Chris Kocek: What's your favorite memory from this interview? 

Mike Jacobson: Ooh, oh, is it a memory if I can't remember the thing that you said that stumped me that I had to think about? You know what probably my favorite memory of this is you never having seen the Google meet effects that I could bring into your life. 

Chris Kocek: Well, thank you for bringing that magic into my life, Mike.

Mike Jacobson: Of course. Thank you for having me.

Chris Kocek: Thanks again to our guest, Mike Jacobson. If you wanna see what else Mike is up to from Magic to marketing to interesting AI experiments, you can find him on LinkedIn at Mike Jacobson or on Instagram @hellomagicmike. If you're looking for even more ideas and inspiration, be sure to check out the Light Bulb newsletter at chriskocek.com/newsletter.

Every Thursday, I share three [00:42:00] “Aha!” moments that are guaranteed to inspire your next project, creative briefing or campaign.

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Special thanks to Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios for producing this episode. And thank you to Megan Palmer for additional editing and production support. Until next time, keep looking for patterns, finding contradictions, and asking “What if?” more often.