How to Make Your Brand Truly Unforgettable | Jimi Gibson

Most marketing is forgettable. Jimi Gibson knows why—and he’s here to fix it.

Jimi started his career as a professional magician, learning the art of capturing attention and leaving audiences amazed. Today, as VP of Brand Communication at Thrive Agency and the creator of The Magic Script™, he applies the same principles to marketing. He’s helped thousands of businesses craft messages that don’t just sound good but actually work—cutting through the noise and turning passive viewers into engaged customers.

In this episode, Jimi reveals why most brands struggle to connect with their audience, the biggest marketing myths you need to unlearn, and how a simple shift in messaging can transform your results. He shares the secrets behind The Magic Script™, explains why “going viral” is a distraction, and breaks down how consistency—not gimmicks—is the real key to success.

If you want your brand to be unforgettable, this conversation is a must-watch.

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Show Links

LinkedIn: Jimi Gibson on LinkedIn​

Podcast: The Thumbody® Show​

TED Talk: You Have Magic Power. Use It for Good​

Forbes Contributor Page: Jimi Gibson - Forbes Agency Council​

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Transcript

Paul: 0:29

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers. Today we are bringing you a little bit of magic. I'm gonna explain what I mean by that in just a moment. But today's guest is the fabulous Jimi Gibson. Jimi, welcome along to the show Thank you for joining us.

Jimi: 0:44

Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to our chat.

Paul: 0:47

Amazing. Jimi is the VP of Brand Communication at Thrive Agency. He's also a TEDx speaker and a Forbes agency council member with over 25 years of experience in marketing and messaging. But before mastering brand communication, Jimi was a professional magician. An experience that taught him to captivate audiences, create intrigue, and deliver unforgettable messages. He's since applied those skills to the business world, helping brands cut through the noise with the magic script, a brain-based framework for crafting messaging that connects emotionally and converts. And his mission is to make sure businesses stop relying on marketing fluff, and instead master the art of clear, compelling messaging that actually works. I have to say, Jimi, I have so many questions. But I love that your focus is on that emotional connection with messaging because I think that's super important and hands on heart, it's usually the bit that all of the people who are struggling with their business are missing because there's just no. Connection between them and their audience. So I'm gonna come back to that in a moment. But, first of all, I wanna rewind because you've got 25 years of experience in marketing and messaging, and I'm assuming that the magician stage of your life was before that, right? Or was it kind of running in parallel?

Jimi: 2:11

Yeah, well I started when I was about four. I found a little membership card in a box a few years ago that I was part of the mail order Merlin's Magic Club, I couldn't believe the date on that card. And, you know, things progressed. very interested in marketing and advertising, and we can dig into that, but it's always been a parallel path. I have been able to incorporate it in talks that I give clients know this is what I do. So yeah, it's just one of those things that I can't It just it's sort of the lens that I see the world through.

Paul: 2:45

It is fascinating. So it's something that, that you kind of, I guess you found an early interest in it for. It's not often where I come across people who maintain an interest from when they were 4-year-old. Through into later life. So I think of that as a call in rather than something that you kind of were interested in. What would you say is the most interesting experience you had in that kind of magician's experience?

Jimi: 3:08

Wow. To nail that down to one would be tough. You know, got a magic kit formerly when I was six years old, and I was sort of the only kid. In the neighborhood that had a business card and I was advertising myself to perform birthday parties for kids my

Paul: 3:24

Wow.

Jimi: 3:24

age which was kind of cool. I'll tell you what was an interesting turning point for me. I. My mom dad were very supportive. They put up with this little kid who was a little on the strange side. My younger brother is a lawyer. My older brother is an electrical engineer, so I'm sort of this weird kid in the middle. But my mom had taken me to open up a savings account at the local bank and. I said, sure. Anything that involves money and hanging out with my mom sounds pretty good to me. So we went to the bank. The teller asked us to sit down at this table and she said, I need you to hold your thumb up. And she wanted me to press my thumb into this ink pad. Well, as I started to gather the scene, I saw these posters around the bank. It was a promotion called the Thumb Body Campaign, and it was to encourage kids to open up a savings account. And as I pressed my thumb into that ink pad, she opened up this pass book and asked me to press my thumb into that pass book. I. And told me that was how I was gonna be identified when I came in to make a deposit. so, you know, we had chores around the house. I was making money as doing these magic shows. And so my mom thought it would be best to teach me good savings practices. And so after I pressed my thumb in there, she said, I need you to draw a character. Using the thumb as sort of the body of this character. pointed to a poster and there were pictures of little cartoon thumb people that was a doctor, a lawyer, a ballerina, a fireman, you know, all these different types of characters. And I looked and I was like, I don't see the one that I think I need to draw. I took the pen and I went down to the little drawing and I added a little top hat and drew a hand with a magic wand. And I kind of caught myself right in the middle and I thought, should I be doing this? I mean doctors and lawyers and all of that. so the lady who was sitting with us, the teller, she said, wow, that's amazing. That's a great drawing. And I was like, okay. And so then I looked at my mom, and my mom was like. Good job. And I was like, it gave me validation that, hey, I could be anything that I wanted to be. And so that was sort of a turning point for me that it gave me permission to be this magician. And through high school I started working at an ad agency. That's what they were called back then, not digital marketing agency. And I was doing promotional shows for one of their clients. And I was doing upwards of 50 shows a year in high school. I thought, wow, this is pretty cool. And that's what connected the magic to the marketing, that it's behavior change. It's getting people excited. It's a sense of wonder. And so these products that I was promoting. Gave a different dimension to that campaign and that's what I've always tried to maintain. You know, we talked earlier you were mentioning about the emotional connection. You know, when you think about somebody seeing a magic trick, there's this sense of wonder and awe and possibility and how could this happen? And if you can take. Just a little bit of that and move it over to a product or service. think that's what people are looking for. They're looking to be amazed by a company, you know, customer service. We all have had horrible experiences with customer service. We've ordered a product that doesn't meet the expectations of what we thought it should. And if we just look at how are we designing our product and services to present that feeling of all wonder and connection, that's the world I wanna live in. So I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but that's kind of how I see it.

Paul: 6:53

I love it. There. There is, I could probably we've only got half an hour for the episode, otherwise I'd probably be asking loads and loads more detailed questions. I guess what was. In your mind, what was the thing that most attracted you to being a magician at that early stage before you kind of thought about careers and money? And was it the performance? Was it the excitement? Was it kind of being in front of a crowd? I dunno, what was it? A mixture.

Jimi: 7:18

I would say it would be channeling classic clown behavior into a useful thing. I've always been sort of outgoing, you know, they say public speaking is feared more than death. I don't have a problem standing up in front of a crowd. My parents would have, I don't know what they call'em over there, but they, we call'em yard sales or garage sales, where you take a bunch of stuff and put it out and people come by and purchase it. When they had one of those, I would sell tickets for 25 cents and then I would move the crowd over to a different part of the backyard and perform the show. And so I think it's everything, the routine maybe having a secret that nobody else knows about. I. look on people's faces, I would say it's all packaged up together. You know, I love knowing how things work. There's a lot of things that happen to the audience that are not seen by the spectators, so they call that the backstage view. And then I love sort of the idea of defying the natural laws of science, right? You know, I'm sorry to let your audience in, but magic is not real. There is a trick behind it, but there's a suspension of disbelief that happens when the audience says, Hey, I'm gonna go to this magic show. They want to be fooled. They want to have that happen. And so I think. Outside of commerce and all of those things, and we can connect the dots. I just love having the ability to walk into any room, any place and just be able to give people fun. You know, I volunteer at various charities around town whether they're doing a fundraiser, whether it's I mean we have a homeless, ministry downtown and I will go and do a magic trick before the food is served and the blessing is said, and I'm just doing magic tricks for the homeless. And you think, why would you want to do that? Well, you know what? Everybody needs to forget about their day for a minute. They need to have some sense of wonder or joy. yeah, I think that's probably the attraction that has stuck with me is just that feeling that people get when they, I. Can't figure it out, and they're just like, oh man, that was awesome. I can't believe it. So, yeah.

Paul: 9:19

So then moving that forward at some point. In your career, you decided to then get into the kind of public speaking side of things. You mentioned that you didn't really have a fear of it as such, but what was the turning point where you decided you would go and do a TEDx talk, for example?

Jimi: 9:34

Yeah, I think you know, if you're familiar with Ted, it's the idea, you know, what is the idea you have that's worth spreading and so. Again, wrapped in the prestige of being on the TED stage, but then there's a responsibility for it not to be about you. It's about something that somebody needs to hear. And so my wife and I had the chance to visit Rwanda. We were sponsoring a young man over there, you know, just anomal amount that took care of some medical needs and took care of. Schooling that kind of thing. But every time we with his name was Emmanuel. The interpreter was beside him and he always wanted him to be on his right side. so we got back home and we were like, that's kind of strange. He's not doing very well in school. He wanted the interpreter on the right side. So we got in touch with the organization and they said, we'll check it out. It turns out that Emmanuel had an ear infection for eight years. And if you're familiar with the history of Rwanda, there was a genocide where lots of kids were orphaned. he had lost his father. He knew that he wouldn't get any medical treatment, so he just kind of kept it quiet. Well, they asked us, would you want to, pay for this operation? And, you know, us being in the Western world, we're like, I have no idea how much is that gonna cost. 20, 30,$40,000. So he said, why don't you find out and then we will let you know. So again, this magic has been a dual path for me. It has been. In my professional life do things nights and weekends, that type of thing. And so I was traveling to Washington, DC to do a show, and it was later I would always call my wife on the way back and say, Hey, you know, I'm headed back. I should be there in a couple hours. And she said, well, the organization called and they have given us the price for the operation. I'm like, you know, trying not to swerve off of the road and I'm holding my breath. And I said, well, how much is it? Well, she told me almost to the exact number, the amount of money that I just made doing something that I would've done for free, something that I loved. And so it was no question we were gonna pay for the operation. We actually found out later, through some connections, that his entire personality had changed. He became more outgoing, he did better in school. And so again, there was this transition point where I'm like, you know what? is magic. I love performing. People have something that they're great at that they take for granted, and they need to know that's their personal abracadabra and they need to give that to somebody else. And whatever that means. You know, you may have people listening right now, thinking back to that thumbprint on the page, what character would they have drawn? Is that something that they're passionate about? It doesn't have to be your profession. It could be something that you just give to somebody else. And so I. I think that was the trigger for me to want to pursue that, is to let people know that they're valued and there's something that they are awesome at and they just need to embrace it and go for it. So again, a little bit longer answer, but really is impetus for me to move somebody from where they are to where they are, give them a different to live their life by.

Paul: 12:49

That is such a powerful story, and I've written something down there that personal abracadabra, I think that's a phenomenal phrase. I love it. And you know, when I think back to when I left the corporate world, I'd lived most of my life in a very siloed retail environment. It was B2C, you know, I didn't even, I didn't even know what B2C or B2B meant. I served customers. That's how I thought of it. And I remember coming to do networking events with people and I'd been told, well, you need to show value first and people will give you value back. And I was like, brilliant. What's my value? I have no idea. I've worked in retail all my life and I started off giving kind of leadership advice, which I've done 15 years of different levels of leadership, and it was with lots of different people. I have something to see on all of that. And the moment of realization came to me down the line was that I love connecting people. I love find, it's a jigsaw puzzle and I love finding somebody who needs the services of somebody else and putting them together not for me to make money, just to see the look on their face when they go, oh yes, you are the person I was supposed to meet. And it became, if you like, my personal a cadabra at the beginning was, how do I add value to people without having a real B2B skillset? Well. It was this connecting thing. So your story really, resonates and I'm pleased you shared it. to come back to where we started off at the beginning, a lot of your mission is based around getting rid of marketing fluff. Now that's a very kind of subjective and quite a polarizing opinion, and I, but I like it. I like it. But I'd love to hear from you, Jimi, like what's your what would you class as market and fluff and why does it cause you such a. Oh, why is it frustrate you so much? That's what I'm trying to say.

Jimi: 14:31

Yeah. And again, it is a subjective opinion as to what Marketing Fluff is, and I think it has with the advent of chat, GPT, the various AI tools. that content is king or queen or however you want to interpret that. There have been a number of with algorithms, especially with Google devaluing you know, we have the EAT framework, which is really focusing on expertise, authority. I. Trustworthiness and you just can't push the easy button and get something that's generic and put it on your site because it's a reflection of you, right? And so again, going back to putting the time in, providing something of value. If you're reading something about a company and it just doesn't say anything, it doesn't have any personality, it doesn't have a tone of voice, what am I actually learning from you? it frustrates me because. Again, we're all unique. We have skills, we have perspectives, we have points of view. the more people know about those things that get you excited because I believe enthusiasm is transferrable. And if I'm enthusiastic about something and, you know, you talk about mirroring people and body language and raising your voice and intonation, know it, when you talk to somebody who's passionate about something, what happens? They talk faster, they smile, they get more energy involved, and that's what content should be. Content should not be, I have to do this because somebody in marketing says I have to do this, so I'm just gonna go write some generic article or put some social media posts out there and it just adds to. The trash pile of content that is prevalent across the internet, and it's really opportunity for businesses to be proud of who they are and what they do. And you'll be a diamond in the rough if you actually talk real, if you have some personality and you have a point of view on something

Paul: 17:05

If you dare, right? If you dare. I love it.

Jimi: 17:07

Yes. And I know that's your business, so I'm sure you come across that all the time.

Paul: 17:12

Well, interestingly, I was having a conversation with a group of, in a networking group this morning, and one of them copied and pasted a paragraph from an email that she'd received from from somebody. And to your point, not even marketing, it wasn't even marketing fluff, it was an internal comms, and, but it was like one long paragraph and it said absolutely nothing. My brain melted trying to decipher what it was that she'd actually said in this email. And I, so I don't think. Market and fluff is specific to market, and I think there's a lot of fluff out there. Part of me wondered whether somebody had put a prompt into chat GPT to create the email in the first place. I don't think they had, I think that's, you know, it was a non-expert trying to relay technical information about something they didn't really understand instead of just putting their hand up. And, I think there's an element of that across marketing as well, is as marketers sometimes I come across people that do far more than they're expert at. Know your lane, stay in it, be an expert at one thing or the two things that you're really, good at. And I'm sure you know, working in paid media as well as anything else, you come across people in the same sort of industry that claim to be master of everything, all encompassing, paid media wise and pay per click and SEO and organic and website design. And it's incredibly hard to be an expert of one of those things, nevermind multiple unless you've got a bigger team where you can have individual experts. Is that something that you've experienced?

Jimi: 18:38

Yeah, and that's why we have a team that pushes 200 employees because we. Basically created, and we went through a reorganization about a year and a half ago where we divided up the company into four unique teams. And then we have specialists, subject matter experts in each of those areas. We are full service and we believe that, yeah. you don't go and, you know, it's a cliche thing. You don't go to a general practitioner to have brain surgery done. Right? You seek out the experts, and so we've really tried to build the agency with a team of experts and not generalists,

Paul: 19:17

Perfect. I like the idea. I like it. Getting back to the magic script then, because that's obviously your baby, that's your market now cadaver, right? What is the mark? What is the magic script and what can we learn from it?

Jimi: 19:29

Sure it's a messaging framework that can be used for any type of communication. You know, as I started to work with a variety of clients and understand what their challenge is, again, I see the world through the lens of magic and I thought about presenting. Trick to an audience and what is the structure of that trick? Now, I was fortunate enough to be included in a training program with a Broadway director. He was in the original cast of Annie, he's a magician himself. He's directed, gosh, 22 Broadway productions. And so we went to Montreal for about a week, about 10 of us, and actually went about five times to this event. And at how. You connect with an audience, where is the trigger of intrigue? And then how do you satisfy that desire for somebody to see the conclusion of that trick? And so as I thought about that, I went, well, that's the exact same thing that needs to happen with any sort of messaging. And so we'll just talk about that from a commerce perspective. Nothing happens until you make a connection with somebody. So we've all heard about, know, like, and trust. And so that's the first framework. And the connection point releases oxytocin in the brain, which are the neurotransmitters that can, you know, communicate with the rest of the body. And that's that trust factor. And so whether it is some type of rapport, common ground, you're identifying that you know their problem. That's the first thing. And then the next thing you want to do is you want to activate curiosity. And so when you activate curiosity, that's a release of dopamine. I know that we're all familiar with, you know, people are supposedly addicted to social media and they talk about dopamine high. it's not the. Addiction to social media, it's actually the expectation of a reward. And so when you post something, you're expecting that people are gonna like it, love it. And so there's this chemical that is an anticipatory chemical and it needs to be closed. And so we move from the connection to the. Curiosity, then we need to move to the conversion, and that's the solution. the conversion is a release of serotonin, which is that feel good, everything's right with the world. And I started to look at that from a magic perspective. You know, if a magician walks out on stage, he's gonna greet the audience, he's going to win them over, right? then he's gonna say. He or she is gonna say, I'm going to float this woman in the air. And so your brain is like going, how is that possible? then the actual magic happens, and then you see the person floats up, floats down. That's release of the serotonin. And so if you can classify, magic trick can be grouped into 13 different. Effects. So you start with the effect. And so it could be a production making something appear. It could be a vanish, it could be a restoration. And so if you think about your business is, you know, if you have a product launch, that's a production, right? If you are in the roofing business or in the restoration business, then that's a natural form of restoring back something to its initial state. If you are in leadership and sales weren't great. are you restoring sales back to the way they were before? so you take one of those effects. That is the focus, that is the key purpose of what you're trying to communicate. And then there is particular phrasing that takes you from connection, curiosity, and conversion so that you are taking advantage of our natural tendencies to follow story pattern to follow. What we are wired to, absorb through a connection, whether it be through an ad, through, you know, a speech, through a Zoom conversation that we're having and. I thought, wow, this is amazing. I've not been able to break it yet. And it's just a fascinating thing that I'm able to translate something that I'm very familiar with from the magic world and then apply that to commerce or any sort of connection or messaging framework.

Paul: 23:31

There's one thing that I know that we both fundamentally agree on based on everything that you've said. And I'm interested to see your side of things, and it's a common question I get when I speak to new clients, which is, but can't I just go viral? And it's the most frustrating phrase in the world to me because one, it's, if it was easy to do, there would be no such thing. And two, is it really what you want to do? What's your opinion of going viral versus more traditional awareness building?

Jimi: 24:00

Yeah, so I think viral is that dopamine stage of the process. Everybody to be affirmed. They want a vanity metric. They want to, be able to say in conversation, that post went viral. I. I would much rather have a small group of rabid fans than a large group that gave you a standing ovation for 10 seconds and then vanished and never came back. Especially if you are interested and you truly believe that your brand can solve a problem or provide a need for somebody, you just want. Applause for applause sake. if something goes viral and it also connects with that audience, that's a different story. But typically what we see from a going viral perspective, it's a flash in the pan and there's no longstanding connection to the brand. So to chase a viral post, is like chasing after the wind. So I don't know if that's your opinion. Sounds like it might be, but I

Paul: 25:09

There is no silver bullet.

Jimi: 25:11

Yep.

Paul: 25:12

There's no silver bullet. If things were easy, everyone would be rich.'cause we'd all be hone in.

Jimi: 25:16

Oh

Paul: 25:17

would all hone in on that thing. That makes us all go viral and give, brings us money very, easily quicker than everybody else would do anything. It just doesn't, exist. There might be tricks and hacks that you can use to help accelerate what it is that you're doing. But they usually require hard work and effort still. That's the bit that we are all a bit laws to give and that's why I like talking to folks like yourself, Jimi, because it, you are proof that hard work pays off, but it's gotta be the right hard work and it's got to be focused and intentional. And I think that's the thrust of what you're seeing, right, is it's all great and well having your messaging out there, but you've got to have clear. Goals that you are trying to achieve with your messaging, and you've gotta know how it works. And I think there's a lot of neuroscience tied in with what you are seeing as well. Right? You've got a, it's clear you've got an interest in neuroscience too.

Jimi: 26:09

Yeah. And you know, I'm curious as to why people are fooled. so that plays into why I love magic you know, it's called a script because there is a sequence to the way things happen. If you go see production on stage, it's not a haphazard bunch of folks just saying what they wanna say. Right? There's a variety of. Sequences in what they say, the lighting cues, the scenery, and that makes it a wonderful production, and you connect with that production. Nothing against improv, but there's a reason why you don't go to Broadway or the West End of London to see an improv show because it's not as scripted and not as. I hate to use the word formulaic, but when things work, they work right. And

Paul: 26:52

Yep.

Jimi: 26:53

that show has been tested. It's brought out things are changed to make it where it is. I, you know, performed in a production at a theme park and I had to do 365 shows over the course of six months. So that's five shows a day, five days a week. And each show I focused on one thing to make better. And so by the end of that six month run that was polished to perfection with a cast of 22 people, and you know, the show was much different on day one than it was on, six months later. so when you look at your content and you look at your marketing. have to be okay with being bad to start with. video is one thing that a lot of businesses are trying to figure out because 82% of traffic this year on the internet is gonna be video related. You just have to be okay with being really bad at video, but you also have to have the discipline and the intent to get better. And then you will start to connect with the audience. If you follow a framework that has been proven connect with your audience, you're gonna have a much better chance than just winging it every time you get in front of the camera.

Paul: 28:00

Absolutely. And that's the power that, that consistency is huge in that it's, you've gotta, it's always darkest before the dawn, and I'm living proof of that this year. Absolutely. Been there and done everything that you are worried about. I've been there and made all the mistakes as well, so, yeah, a hundred percent. Thank you for that, Jimi. if people want to kind of reach out and hear more from you, or they wanna find out more about Thrive Agency, what's the best place for them to kind of get in touch with you?

Jimi: 28:26

Yeah, I am putting a lot of effort into LinkedIn. I'm producing a video every day, Monday through Friday, so practice what I preach. Right. So I shouldn't have put that out there because after I did the math, it's 261 videos this year, so maybe about 250 I'll sound Okay. But yeah, LinkedIn people can connect with me there. DM me if you want to jump on a call and chat, I'd be happy to talk through whatever the struggles are with your business. And then Thrive Agency is just how it sounds. Thrive agency.com. Yeah, tell'em Jimi sent you. If you send us a message, we'll be happy to help think through how we can get you from where you are to where you wanna be.

Paul: 29:04

Amazing. Thank you very much for your time today, Jimi, it's been a pleasure.

Jimi: 29:08

Absolutely. Thank you Paul.

Paul: 29:09

And thank you for watching along at home. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button to make sure that you don't miss out for next week's episode. And if you haven't checked it out. There's one thing that Jimi mentioned in the middle of the show, which was around nor like and trust, well, we had Bob Berg on the show last week, so if you want to go back and see that episode, Bob was the guy that popularized that book with his book, the Go Giver. Absolutely go back and give that a watch. If you've enjoyed this, you'll love Bob's episode also. Thank you very much. Take care. Bye-bye.