Hey, everyone. John here. Welcome to the very first episode of the Incredible Machines podcast, where we chat to incredible people doing incredible things and learn what makes them incredible. You know, it reminds me of this time I met Brian Urbana. Yes, the rugby legend. We're going to talk about that later in this episode. Oh, and for all you marketing nerds out there, I see you. We got these six principles we'll be playing around with on every episode. Things like detach and distribute, always on optimization. And my personal favorite, crazy beats strong. Don't worry if it sounds like gibberish right now. We'll break it all down for you. As we go along, we're going to be looking at some killer marketing campaigns and picking our guest brains about what makes them tick. Trust me, even if you're not a marketing nerd, you're going to love this stuff. So buckle up, folks. Let's do this. Okay, we made it. We did. So we hear episode one intro the Incredible Machines podcast. So, yeah, just to think, just a note to start with, guys, and something we're trying to work on. Keep in mind here the whole time and really think it would be valuable for everyone else to think about this often. Perfect is the enemy of good. So keep that in mind while we transition into this first episode and have a bit of fun. But, yeah, welcome to the Incredible Machine podcast, where we interview incredible machines and talk about what makes them incredible and hopefully find out what that is and learn from that. I'm John Olaf, an entrepreneur, and I'm joined here by my business partner, co producer, creative director in the space, Luke Holden. Hey, what's up, guys? Luke and I met some time ago at TEDx conference and chatted there, and that's how we got introduced. But I was actually following Luke already on Instagram and via his podcast, the Devon Small Business podcast. The link will be in the show notes, and I recommend you subscribe. How you doing today, Luke? I'm good, Rai. How are you doing? First podcast. Hey, first episode. You can see and hear the nerves, but that's good. You'll never know unless you go. Exactly. And it's first one's always a doozy. So I have the opportunity to be on the ride with you. Amazing. Thanks, man. That's awesome. So, episode one, we just want to introduce the show, the incredible machines. I've got a bit of anecdote to quantify, possibly, if only emotionally, but hopefully it unpacks a bit about what an incredible machine is, at least to me, and then get your input, Luke, on that. And it'd be great. So for that, I'm gonna tell you guys a story about the day I met Brian Habana. Brian Habana. Yeah. Okay, so really tough day, actually. I was at Cape Town airport in the lounge, and I was on a call with my business partner and my financial director, and I was just relaying the day than what we had been through as a team there. And it was brutal. It was not a good day for business. It was pretty horrific and just, yeah, pretty tough. And you could feel that energy on the phone call. Obviously, they understood how big the account was. And, like, just solon and dahn trodden, like, was the vibe. And then in a mid sentence, sort of relaying and discussing what we're gonna do next steps. And I just see this head coming up the stairs in the lounge, and then his shoulders, these massive shoulders, which I'll talk about later on, too, but mid sentence, I say, guys, I gotta go. Brian Habana's in the room. Like, it's the best day. It's awesome. And they got it immediately. Okay, cool. Yeah, that's awesome. And then we cut the core, and we went. So I went to go sit, like, actually get my bag and stuff and sit down. And it ended up sitting opposite him, but he was busy, and it was. He was on work. He was on work thing. I could see his working on his laptop, and it was so interesting to see, to see him on a laptop that's probably a normal sized laptop, whatever, 18 inch screen, but it looked tiny with these broad shoulders, and he looked like he was just chinking away there. And I was just like, oh, my God, it's Brian Urbana. And eventually, they called my flight, and I was like, jeez, I gotta go say, how's it to him? Like, I just gotta just go say, how's it to. And they called my flight again, and as they called it for the last time, he closed his laptop, and I literally slid into his DM's. I slid into him in person, and I just said, brian, like, it's such a pleasure to meet you. And he looked at me, and he was just like, thanks, man. Like, so how you doing? What? Like, what's going on? What do you want to, like, what's up? And I was just, like, looked at him. I was like, no, I didn't prep any more than that, dude. Like, I was like, my flight's going. Like, I'm chills. And I just started and, like, abruptly left very awkwardly. One of those awkward ones. Yeah. And as you know. And we'll discuss later on in many episodes, one of my superpowers is being awkward. So, yeah, so I just left very abruptly. Got on the plane, 2 hours on the flight, in my head, overthinking and going, geez, I really. How did I manage that one? I got. I landed, and I messaged him on Instagram, and I just said, brian, like, I just met you at the airport, and I was having this, like, really horrific day, and, like, just seeing you made my day better. Yeah, that's awesome. And I. I'm sorry I stuffed it up, but, like, I just wanted. I meant to say thank you. Like, thank you, because. And what I've got from that now is that, Brian, that experience showed me what an incredible machine is. An incredible machine is someone that can enter the room and change the room just like that. And that doesn't come easy. It's a. I mean, that discipline and. Yeah, I mean, he's an absolute legend and also just so amazing. He just wanted to ask about me and all that. So the training that's come into that and not being. He's the brightest star in the room, but that's what an incredible machine is. That's the anecdote, I think. Like, and I. Yeah, it's. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever had that experience with anyone or you feel that. Yeah, I've had this on. I've had it a few times in my life where someone's. Someone's walked into the room, and it's just changed the dynamics, whether they changed the dynamics in the room for every person there, or whether it was just me. Yeah, that's a. That's an interesting conversation to have. Yeah. It's relative. Yeah. So your kids. I noticed this, again with my kids, is just when they see me, generally, they smile like the first time they see me. It's. Something plays in the memory, and it's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Those little snippets of being accessed from the database or the memory or whatever, like that. And overwhelmingly positive memories equal smile. If there's something, and it's proximity to. So I guess if something's happened really terribly, that you've done something bad, it might take a while to get that smile out, but the overwhelmingly positive memories spark that smile and just like. Yeah, so you can. The fact that you can change people's mood, their experience at that moment in time, just by entering a room, that's aspirational. And we do that as parents. We do that in our own way. What we want to do here or what I think going to try accomplish is get people onto the show that are, that for us and for other people and the leaders and business owners and that sort of stuff. And, yeah, all the different type of guests, we'll get on and speak to them and then unpack that. So, I don't know. I want to get into a bit of the structure, but I don't know if you've got anything else to add there. No, I think. I think it's great. I think I'll tell you a little story quick. Yesterday, I was sitting with my editor, and we were, we were editing through a podcast, and we went back into the, we went back into the archives of the specific podcast, and he was telling me a story of when he, he had edited so many podcast episodes with a specific guest for, for the podcast that he, he felt like he knew him. And he walked in, he was on a shoot with us and he walked in. This guest walked into the room, and my editor got up and he's like, hey. Waving at the guy, like, hey, how you doing? How you doing? And this dude's like, who the heck are you? But my editor felt like he knew him because of the value he brought and just by editing him. So it's. Yeah, the perceptions are amazing. And that guy was an incredible machine for him because he knew him, he knew the value he brought, and he felt like he had this familiarity with him. And same with you and Brian Habana, it would have been, you've never met the guy, but he's made an impact on your life. And you walked up to him like you knew him, and he was, like, kind enough and gracious enough to greet you back and ask you how your day was. But I'm excited to meet those people. Yeah, more of those people. Yeah. And just help create more of those people. So if we can unlock the learnings and what makes them tick and how, like, what's their origin story? So how did they, why are they like this? Yeah. And, yeah, just, it's an exciting opportunity. I'm very excited to do it. I think the structure that we want to try get is with a lifeline so that they can give you that origins, give you a brief view on it, and then business, personal, family. I like to break things into threes, I think, and we can tackle that. So, like, my personal, just as an introduction to me, I'm a 40 something year old male focused on being a lifelong learner, and I understand my purpose to be making the experience better. And that's at a very high level and I do that in various ways. But yeah, my family. I'm an eternally grateful husband, father of two boys and a dog. I say eternally because I really don't know how I got this lucky. And I say about my family, when I'm asked about that question, like you get asked about will you leave? Are you going to leave? Are you thinking about leaving South Africa? And my answer is the same as what I say to my family about my family is I'll stay as long as they'll have me. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So I'm a serial entrepreneur and a background in digital and performance marketing, specifically creative and a bit of code. I have a degree in media and comms and an honours degree in strategic brand leadership. My teams and I've won awards and I think that's just a business career snippet of what we would do with people give their credentials and we work on that. And then, yeah, I mean this is the incredible machine, or Tim. It also is an acronym for this is marketing. So there's a high level of marketing that I kind of believe a lot of what we see an experience is marketing. And that's not a negative thing. It's not. I mean, thinking makes that so. It's not good or bad. Thinking makes it so. And so we'll discuss marketing the ideas and one of the things that I love to discuss and if you know me, and hopefully you'll get to know a few listeners in that and expand from that. But I love a good quote. It's a shortcut for me to an idea. Were the quotes for today, but hopefully a quote every session that we can unpack and then get people's views on and that sort of thing. The quote that is really stuck and it has been stuck on repeat for me and resurfaces is when the student's ready, the teacher will appear. That's awesome. When the students are ready, the teacher will appear. Yeah. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. So for me that is love. I both love and hate that there's a yin and yang of that. It's so frustrating to know that I'm gonna this learnings out there for me and I need to step into those, but I'm not ready like that. I'll go ah. Like that's what. And that was like 2011, that thing. The first time that and I could have learned today I wasn't ready. So the teachers is gonna appear that the really positive thing that is, is that it will, you will get it if you open and we'll discuss on how to be open and sort of tactics to get that done and then. Yeah. Like, it's just such an interesting space to be in to shortcut two big ideas and people get those quotes and you got to be careful of using them too often. But yeah, that's me. I'm not. I'm very much known in my agency, in my company and that sort of stuff as John's got a quote for this. My partner, client partners and that sort of thing. That's awesome. So I'll just give you a shot when I need a quote. Inspirational quote. Yeah, do it. You can sense that? Yeah, I'll feel it in the moment. I think it's like they're not mine. I say this often, the quotes are definitely not mine, that I don't know even who they belong to sometimes. They've been misattributed so many times, but yeah, they'll hopefully make sense in that moment. The other thing, in the episodes, we're going to relay the six principles. So it's the six principles of marketing in a digital age now. We've upgraded this. It's got a background from a Google staffer and it's been with me for the last sort of almost 15 years now. And I tried to cut it down to less principles. If you know about anything, there's another quote that comes to mind. And I'm already into the two quotes now, but I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I had to write a long one instead. Mark Twain quotes. So we want to reduce things to simplify them, to make them more punchy and that sort of stuff. I wasn't able to actually reduce the. The principles, so I've added one. I've been able to group them and we'll talk about that. And the grouping is quite interesting because the grouping is to do with IQ, intelligence quotient, the EQ, the emotional quotient, and then the other one, which isn't often spoken about, but is alluded to every now and again. And there's some great TED talks. I'll look for one and put it in the show notes. But the adaptive question, the AQ, it's called many names, but that ability to change and adapt and like that. Here's one misattributed to Darwin, but it's actually out of potentially a management book. So it's not the strongest or the smartest or the fittest that survive. It's the most adaptable to change that survive. So yeah, the six principles being, I'll go through them singularly now, but detach and distribute is the first one and probably one of my favorites, strategically repurposing and distributing content on platforms and within platforms. The next one is always on optimization. So leveraging data and metrics for continuous improvements. Then principle two, into the emotional, or the EQ segment is experiences. Replace messages. So creating immersive brand experiences that connect emotionally. Everyone will probably be familiar with this. You forget what someone tells you, but you never forget how they made you feel. So that emotional quotient is really important. And if you can replace the message with that, that's amazing. Also brand utility, and brand is a butler, we call it, or value exchange. So, offering useful or entertaining services to engage emotionally, and then the fifth one, and very much what we're doing here, but what we also want to do with our guests and our audiences. In marketing, you love to do this. User generated content, this collaborative environments is the principle. So encouraging user generated content and co creation, so people don't get that. I love working with teams and just reminding them that you're not what you say you are entirely as a brand. You're promised, delivered, so you are what they think you are and that you can, you have some control over that, obviously. But the 6th and final principle that we'll touch on is I've labeled as crazy, be strong, but also think, just think differently. Like do things that just, they are a little bit crazy, they're out the box. So embrace the disruptive, unconventional ideas to stay adaptive. Yeah. And those are the six principles, again, just to go quickly through them one last time, is detach and distribute always on optimization experiences, replace messages, value exchange of brand, utility, collaborative environments, and crazy, be strong, think differently. Yeah. So what I think would be a decent transition is to also what we would love to discuss with our guests. And they'll be, these are not necessarily going to be marketing people, but I am of the opinion that marketing is almost everywhere and that people's opinions matter and they'll have a favorite campaign. So this is the campaign that I want to go through and will be in the show notes is one that I worked on and we won awards for it, but the impact that it had on me and it has on me every time present this to as a credential or whatever it is to clients, has been massive. So, yeah, that's, that's, that'll be up next and also in the show notes if you want to see it. So let me flip to it. It's the darling big thank you campaign. I cannot wait to surprise my mom today. That women sacrifice everything just for me to get it a brighter future. Mom on life has never been easy. You know, at times, put hold of her dream just to see other people. Dreams become reality. She works as a domestic breaker because they always tell me that once you're done with the studies, that will be the time where, you know, retire and sit down. For now, I'm just still working for you. I feel for her because I know the pain that she goes through every day to put that money on the table. Yeah. I really can't believe this is happening. I think she's gonna freak out at first because I'm supposed to be at school, but I cannot wait to give her this big thank you surprise. I'm here to give you a big thank you. Open the door. Mama ria on a spa for a day. I'm just here to thank you for being there for me. So now it's my time to spoil you. To say big thank you to my mother. She always tell me about it, that I so wish that one day I can go there to treatment. So today is the day. How are you? During holidays and weekends, I will come this side to see my mom. One of the things that we usually do is to break each other's herring. It creates a very strong bond between the two of you, because now you're together, you're busy talking. We talk about everything. You must tell them you woke up like this. Don't break it. You look more every beautiful. Dear Emily and Alisa, we at darling, we believe in empowering women. That's why we are also going to give you a gift of 10,000 towards Alessia's education. So what? I'm facilitating. I have a dream to become a teacher, to just inspire other people. Mama, I love you. Mama. I just always love their campaign. You can hear. I'm a bit emotional about it. Yeah, that was a great. That was great. Yeah. Very, very cool. And you guys are involved in the making of that. Yeah. So that was. It's such a. So started off in social specifically, and it's a gratitude exercise, but, I mean, it's perfect for. We're in women's month now, so what a great way to celebrate that. I think one of the great things about that campaign is once it ran, it was finished, done. No more paid media, no any of the principles that I'm going to get to. But people kept coming back and saying they're big. Thank you. It just never. And we talk about gratitude now in this era like we didn't know about it. This is 20 1415 or something like that. So yeah, the detach and distribute so different, the videos and different channels and those quotes and that was obvious. The experiences replace messages that it was this experience that we just captured and it just shows that message. What are the insights? Believing in the way in marketing we work is when best is insight before idea and idea before execution or channel. So insight there that, that small thing, a hair doing someone's hair or doing like paying attention, that act of love, like, but it's so small is such a big thing and the small things matter and yeah, so the value exchange, so the brand just doing that chauffeuring and that experience they'll never forget, but we'll never forget it either. Collaborative environments. So that user generated content, that was one of the entrants and then the users just sort of voted and upvoted and all that sort of stuff. And that wasn't scripted. You, you guys were just capturing the day. You planned ahead, but you were documenting, capturing the human experience and what's happening there. Yeah. And you've, I mean that's not a TVC, that's not a 32nd, it's like, or$0.15, whatever. That's like, it's, it's a long form. Long, long form. But there's so much more. And that's also, I get trick, I get reminded of what happened in the, in the background there that her mother never had a proper bed. Like. So that was one of the gifts that the brand bestowed, like a mattress and a bed. So when she came home from that experience of getting her hair done, shake it till he don't break it sort of thing like that, she came in and she saw she had like a bed now for the first time properly. That's amazing. And the whole studio, like, the whole, I'm sorry. The whole set was in tears. And as a bonus to the principles, and maybe it's the think differently category which we didn't know about back then, but what I've learned from there is record the set. Like do the back, see, do the back edits, do the behind the scenes stuff. Capture that because there's stuff that will just, your content begets content and in the, in a lot of instances and that like behind the scenes stuff, the whole set being in tears and just such an emotional day. Yeah, it's just amazing and amazing that a brand could be involved in that. So, yeah, that's awesome, man. What an experience. Yeah. So, yeah, that's essentially how we'd like to play these out. The quote, the big thank you and getting the guests to weigh in on campaigns that have moved them in some way. And then we get to dissect the. Based on the six principles, which ones are being used always on optimization comes in, like, with that brand or that client partner. For instance, we did a. We did a prize that was for a Paris trip for four. To get four people over to Paris. And we had that on our paid media adverts. Thankfully, no billboards. But within the first week of it, that going live with this trip before to Paris, the Paris text happened, these attacks happened, and then we have. You can't. No one's gonna go to Paris. No, everyone's going like, wow, you got it. So you can switch paid media off. You can always. You can always on optimize. You switch that off and you change. And we talked about the other prizes. That's awesome. Yeah. These different principles will come into the campaigns, and we identify them, and that's what makes it, in our opinion, makes a good campaign. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to the going through it with you. I'm excited, man. And then getting their views on the marketing aspect, but also, like, what makes them incredible and, like, how can we utilize that? So, yeah, that's gonna be great. I'm excited for the episode lineup and getting to hear the stories behind people's incredible machining. Yeah, that's really excited. Excited for this journey. Yeah. So I'm excited about it. Like, let's. Let's do it. And thanks anyone that wants to listen and come along for the journey. Yeah, let's go.