How Your Narrative Fuels Brand and Demand
Gabie Boko, CMO at NepApp, shares with us why you can’t have brand without demand or demand without brand and how it all starts with your narrative.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to 5Lion Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faizan, CEO of Cast Mein Studios.
And today, I'm joined by special guest, Gaby.
How are you?
>> Good. I'm great Ian.
Thanks for having me.
>> So excited to chat with you about marketing, about NetApp,
about what it means to be the CMO,
and everything in between.
So let's get into it.
What was your first job marketing?
>> No, I was a failed legal person.
Like I wanted to go to law school so desperately,
and I decided this is so dull, I can't do it.
I literally can't do it.
So my first job, I answered,
this is going to be dark ages,
I answered an ad in the newspaper to be a marketing person,
marketing manager for a catalog company,
which is now Insight, actually for those of you looking for
a good partner, Insight is a great partner out of Arizona.
I was one of their first peripheral marketing managers.
So that was my first marketing job.
I knew nothing about marketing.
I'm just going to make it very clear from the outset,
knew nothing about marketing.
I sold my way in on my guts and had a really great boss who said,
I'll teach you everything else.
>> That's awesome.
>> And flash forward to today, tell me what it means to be a CMO NetApp.
>> It's really exciting.
I feel like it's been in my stars maybe since I took that first job to be a CMO
but I have, NetApp is a great place to be right now and to be a CMO
because there's so much transformation.
I hate that word, but generally it's true at this company,
there's so many opportunities for marketing to be a part of the conversation,
to drive differently, to elevate marketing leaders, workers,
employees into the larger company.
So it's a stars aligned, good time.
Good time here at NetApp.
>> Well, let's get to our first segment, the Trust Tree,
where you can go and feel honest and trusted and share those deepest, darkest
marketing secrets.
>> Tell us a little bit about what does NetApp do and who are your customers?
>> Yeah, what does NetApp do?
So NetApp is a storage company at our core.
We believe in the kind of storage that drives connectivity with data,
no matter where you are, data anywhere, any place, any time almost, right?
In the cloud, on premise.
And then really our whole portfolio is how to then work with that data,
good data services, good way to kind of manage TCO or
total cost of ownership with our cloud operations,
whether it's in the cloud or on prem, and how to see it all and manage it also.
A good legacy of being a storage company, and then a way to say storage is
great.
How do we make that storage the best in the business and
elevate our portfolio around it?
>> Yeah, what are the types of companies that NetApp is traditionally working
with?
>> I think we work with just about anybody.
I mean, we're a traditional tech company, so there's a lot of really strong
enterprise
customers, all different kinds of verticals from entertainment all the way to
healthcare, government, to manufacturing.
So very, very traditional on the enterprise side, which most tech companies
have.
I think the interesting part of us is our cloud business,
which allows us to go a little bit smaller, a little bit broader, a little bit
more mid-size.
So a lot of those cloud native companies, a lot of those small and
medium kind of B2C customers who require more optimization on their data from
their storage, both in the cloud and on prem.
And then last but not least, we really have a strong,
strong business in what I would call the hyperscaler space with the big cloud
players like the Amazon's and the Azure's and the Google's and the IBM clouds,
right?
So when you think about our diverse portfolio, when we say we're in storage
or when we say we're in data or infrastructure, we are really carrying that
through no matter where it is, we want to be in those places.
So no matter what kind of company you are, then you have the opportunity to use
NetApp.
>> I love it.
That is, it's a cool place to be in such a cool company.
Who's buying, I mean, these pretty large buying committees potentially
obviously
for the enterprise mid-market smaller who's in that buying committee.
>> I think that's such a great question because in the last five years,
the buying cohorts we've seen change used to be just one individual,
maybe a director of IT or a CIO who had an agenda.
And now even the director of IT based on what digital transformation is
happening,
what do you need to do with data?
That's broadened, right?
You need to include the CFO, you need to include some line of business.
So in the enterprises, I'd say it's huge, right?
Because a director or CIO is going to activate a lot of people across the
company.
In a small company, you might just get like a cloud ops person or
a dev ops person or just a director of IT.
But that is typically what we're seeing right now.
And I think cloud complicates it just a little bit.
But I like that, quite frankly, because a cloud ops person and
a dev ops person is thinking applications, which means they're thinking whole
stack,
not just box.
So it's exciting to have a different cohort than a lot of traditional,
but it's also nice to have it be wholly connected.
>> Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
Sometimes those sales cycles are longer, but it's bigger, it's better,
it's more comprehensive as well.
>> Really?
And how does your marketing team look?
How do you structure your marketing work?
>> So I took over a pretty traditional marketing team, brand,
man, web, digital, those kinds of things.
I've not made a ton of changes.
The only change I have made is to add field marketing back into it.
And to add a little more thought leadership into it.
So pretty traditional around all those other pieces of events, PR, AR.
But I did add thought leadership and field marketing back in.
>> Yeah, why'd you do that?
>> Yeah, I added thought leadership because I find that especially today,
AI is one of those things, cloud spend is one of those things.
Sometimes thought leadership can get lost in a content motion.
And I wanted to really use that as a kind of a market accelerator for
us to be part of conversations and topics that marketing could use.
I really believe that marketing is here to make a market.
>> Right.
>> Do that if you're not seeding the market or in the conversation.
Otherwise, you're just reactive.
So thought leadership gives me and my team and
the whole company a way to respond and or maybe set a tone versus just kind of
waiting for others to carry that torch.
And then field marketing I put back into place because I think I'm a failed
digital leader as well.
But I think that field marketing is critical to staying,
keeping a pulse on sales.
I think marketing is a pendulum.
I think traditionally you're either centralized or decentralized.
And I've seen it every which way.
I am trying to produce what I call a hover state.
But field marketing is one of those words.
This allows me to say there's some parts of
my world I need to keep centralized.
Some pieces of it that I want to send back to the field and
get a closer connection with the customers in the sales team.
So that I can help at the lower end of a funnel or a pipe as well.
So those two changes I think are were important to us right now.
>> So what do you mean by hover state?
I guess it says that.
>> Hover state.
Really, I think that I hate organizations who go through pretty
catatonic like big swing shifts.
So what I'm trying to perfect is, if we need to fix something,
how to address small shifts that kind of keep us in this like,
everybody stays focused, we keep aligned, we're collaborating,
we're integrating versus these cat.
Just just astronomical, we're going to shift all the way over here and
we're going to do it completely differently.
I think that that takes a lot more change management than just constantly
saying,
how do we evaluate?
Do we need to swing a little left, a little right?
Do we need to change a little bit of our direction?
That to me seems like small adjustable changes versus change management.
You're so broken, you've got to fix all of it.
>> Interesting that you sort of broke out foul leadership.
Yeah, it's interesting.
So how does that organize?
Who is in that type of a team?
>> Yeah, it's a combo team of our PR team and our AR team.
It kind of sits not beholden to either, but part of both.
It was a way to keep connected to engineers and
a lot of our really fantastic CTOs and SEs that we have
that produce amazing content and are looking at these kinds of things all the
time for
our product and portfolio roadmap.
Without dampening their urge to publish something that's completely amazing,
but taking that and saying there's these two things we need to elevate.
So it's product marketing without being product marketing.
It's market driven without being I need to go do this.
And it allows us to kind of create things that I'm not going to lie.
PR and AR might not have the time to focus on because they really do have full
time
plates in terms of focusing on that.
So it's very complimentary.
It's not meant to be adversarial.
It's really meant to take the best of everything and just give it a place to
land.
It's a safe place that protects its budget and its people and its thoughts
really.
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting as a company that we spend a lot of time working with
leaders in
thought leadership, whether it's a head of content marketing or whether it's
the VP of
brand or the VP of comms or whomever.
And it's something that I think when you talk about sort of like the create
demand function
of putting your thoughts and your view of the world out there and really your
view of the
world overall and then your view of the next 90 days and the next year and the
next two
years that that is separate from a product roadmap.
Because the product roadmap is how you're going to serve your customers, but
your view
on the world matters for where the market is going or the industry is going and
pushing
that stuff forward and being forward thinking and nobody wants to buy from a
company that's
not forward thinking.
Exactly.
I mean, unless you're buying something that's like a frisbee, I don't know if I
need my
frisbee manufacturer to be super forward thinking, but in technology you have
to be because it
is the industry.
It's our currency that we live in every day.
Yeah.
It's a way to manage innovation and the ideas around it in a way that says, you
know what,
I might not be able to devote an entire set of marketing capabilities or
activities to
this.
Maybe I'm not even selling anything, but I can at least have a conversation in
the market
with my customers, with influencers, and I can decide if this is the space that
my customers
need me to go in or if I believe strategically the board and the C stuff want
to go in.
It's a really nice way to protect the idea.
It's also really important to, I think, do you protect it from the concept of
becoming
strategy?
Because it's not.
Sometimes we bury thought leadership in strategy and then we're wondering why
it never really
becomes thought leadership because you spend all that time kind of doing
strategy, which
is to me a completely separate discipline needs to be done.
Like I said, it was a safe place to go have the conversations while all that
other goodness
is happening.
Yeah.
And how do you view demand as part of your work?
So I, demand is so interesting to me.
I think that every CMO is settled with, are you brand or you demand?
I think you have to be both, right?
Generate demand if you don't have a brand and you can't build a brand if you
don't
know if you need demand.
So what we've really tried to do, I've focused on some of the basics.
We have a, had a really good base on the digital experience.
So we're just trying to up that ante and get a little more no touch and soft
touch, which
I'm really excited about elevating our personalization and our journeys on with
content.
I think where we tried to go to when we thought about demand is what do we need
to give touch
to that is not generating a quote unquote lead, but is maybe helping move
things through
the pipeline or helping it to close.
So really thinking about marketing in service to an engine, which is the sales
engine and
saying we don't want to be the group of people who generate demand and throw it
over the fence
and say, hands off, not going to do it anymore because we have budget choices
to make.
So we really tried to think about it as how do we do certain things in demand
that help
us really in that middle of the funnel and to the lower part of the funnel and
pipe that
are helping us be shoulder to shoulder with sales.
So we do, we let that digital engine carry a lot up front.
We let physical events carry a lot up front.
And then we really do focus in on things like campaigns or offers or sales
plays, ABM, regional
ABM surround, EBCs, you know, every tool in the book to really kind of go mid
to lower
so that we can help get more velocity out of the pipe and we can help convert
more in
the pipe, which I think is an interesting way to view demand.
It's so far being really well accepted because it's a partnership with sales
versus a hand
off.
And I think that was really important to me as a new CMO coming in.
I needed a partnership, not a hand off.
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
And either thoughts on sort of marketing strategy?
I mean, I'm in marketing because I like the spontaneity and the agility of it.
If it was the same job every day, I would be highly, highly disappointed.
The good news is, I think, is that, and I think many CMOs are in the same spot.
A lot of the things that we've seen come around or coming back around again, a
lot of the
things we put into place over the last five years were able to take to the next
level.
That's why I'm in marketing.
I think marketing strategy needs to be able to make those calls, prioritize
when it needs
to.
Like ABM, like I said, we didn't, we prioritized it much lower in the funnel
versus higher
in the funnel.
Events we prioritized more middle and top of funnel versus lower in the funnel.
So I think that's the fun part about marketing.
I think marketing strategy has to be customer and sales driven versus
necessarily market
driven sometimes.
So anyway, I love it.
That's why I'm in this job.
I love that kind of agility that marketing brings.
Okay, let's get to the playbook where you open up the playbook and talk about
the tactics
that help you win.
What are your three channels or tactics that are your uncuttable budget items?
For me this year right now, it's events because people are just jonesing for
the face to face.
Brand because I need to address what I call a brand of commas.
We've created so much great stuff over the last, let's say, decade, but all we
've done
is kind of added a comma every time we added like a new function or a new
innovation.
So I think we need to stabilize that for our customers.
And that's not necessarily the look and feel that's more about the narrative,
which I think
is really important.
And then the last uncuttable thing for me, quite frankly, is digital.
I think it continues to be a driver for all things, including experience,
including demand,
including just generally simplification of the business.
So those are my three uncutables.
Zooming into the brand piece here and having the brand of commas, which I love,
that's
a great expression.
And that's how a lot of companies feel and a lot of CMOS feel, especially when
they come
in and they say, "Okay, how does this feel holistic?"
But also different to other people.
What was your approach sort of trying to eat the cake one by the time there?
Yeah.
It's something that I had the luxury of being the SVP of Portfolio Marketing at
NetApp before
I was the CMO.
And it really started to come out that we can redefine or talk about our
portfolio, but
every time we do, we kind of keep smacking into the brand.
That's not what our brand says.
The brand of commas started as a conversation with my CEO, where I said, "I don
't know if
we need to creatively rebrand or visually rebrand everything.
We might, and that's fine."
But I think critical to us is to fix this who we are statement.
Because it's harder to compete, it's harder to sell anything that's net new.
And I'd like to start working on that.
I did that even before.
I think that was day five of my job.
I was like, "We need to fix this, and we need to be able to get to it this year
."
So I think that it's paramount to who we are as a company.
It's paramount to how we sell.
It's really hard to sell an entire bag of doorknobs if you don't know what door
it
goes to.
So I think, and I'm super happy with the CEO and a president who said, "Yeah,
let's go.
Let's go do that."
And I've been given, I've activated so many people across the company, so many
customers,
so many people are thinking about being customers, partners.
Tell us what's good, what's wrong, where do we need to double down.
It's been a really connecting experience, I guess.
But it's also been a really centering experience.
We're still in it, by the way.
We're not fully done.
But it's been good.
I'm glad I did it.
Anything that's sort of surprised you in that journey?
Well, one thing that was consistent, I would say that everybody is a marketer
when it comes
to brand.
Oh, yeah.
I am blessed with many geniuses on how we should talk about ourselves.
I would say the most surprising thing is the desire to not be truly innovative
in it, but
to be more stable and more centered.
I think that sometimes you think that when you talk about brand, you want to
make a Nike
just do it moment.
Well, Nike just do it was actually how they did business.
It wasn't like a, they weren't trying to break anything.
And I think that that was, it's hard for marketers, especially branders, to say
, "Listen,
you're not trying to come in and break it.
You're not trying to be unusual.
You're trying to be who you are."
And I think that was really an interesting kind of set of work that we had to
do with
ourselves to say, "Who are we?
Who are we?
We aren't who we think we are or have been saying we are.
We're something else.
What is that?"
That's kind of cool.
Right.
You all have also launched NetApp TV with tons of different types of content on
there,
which is really cool.
Want some awards?
You have a bunch of different series, obviously a huge investment in video.
As digital channel curious, like how do you think about investing in creating
NetApp TV
in that whole hub?
Yeah.
It's one of the smartest moves we ever did.
We're certainly still committed to creating amazing content and creating,
especially video
content, which I think people respond to pretty well.
I think what we're playing around with right now is the platform as exciting,
or are they
getting that same content that is served up on NetApp TV and other places?
And do we just connect that back into our digital structure?
So I think we're trying to see where people are consuming that content, but no
doubt there
will be NetApp TV content in perpetuity.
We think it's a winner.
We think it's something that we need to continue to do.
I think we're just as everybody, right?
What platform are people consuming it on?
Do we need to just go there and create that content moment for them?
I think that's a content conversation that I find really interesting coming out
of like
COVID and everything else where everybody was like about their platforms, right
I think so many people are looking externally at the kind of content that they
want to
consume.
Sometimes I think it's less about what you build and it's more about where you
put it.
And if you can put it in more places and make it accessible, then I think it's
job done,
right?
You don't have to go kind of kill yourself on the platform.
But the idea that we didn't want to lose quite frankly when it came to the
content is
NetApp TV that is a really great hallmark of NetApp and it's turned into
something that
people recognize, the stuff, not the platform.
So I think we'll play with it a little bit, but yeah, it's the best content
move we've
made in the last five years.
I mean, it's not hyperbole to say that it's one of the most innovative content
investments
that a technology company has made, a B2B technology company has made.
I think that there's also this stuff moves so fast and the evolution of that.
I mean, like this is obviously like casting is what we do as a business.
So we think about this stuff all the time, but like we think about things like
multi format
and multi channel.
That's like how we think about things like you need to be in video, you need to
be an
audio, you need to be in written word, you need to be short form video and you
need to
be wherever it is that people are consuming things.
So I think that part of the like, you know, part of marketing is, you know,
sort of the
building on the shoulders of giants things where it's like, it gets you to this
place
and then you get to this place and then it gets you to this place and it like
is iterative
and you get, you know, those lessons along the way.
And I think that that's what's so cool.
I mean, like, I think it's like inspirational what you've built and then like,
okay, now
we have all this stuff and how do we, what is the next evolution of this sort
of like
concept?
So I'm right there with you.
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
And it's, you have to commit to it, right?
Content isn't a one hit wonder.
It's a way of life.
So the fact that we have it and have committed to it and continue to commit to
it, I think
says volumes for how important we think content is to the digital journey and
to our sales
and pipeline journey as well.
Well, you know, you talked about thought leadership and you talked about
getting these experts
that you have, getting their thoughts out there, getting, you know, senior
leaders thoughts
out there, you know, building these things like it's so interconnected.
All this stuff is so interconnected, right?
And I think that like what's so hard about it is like, you say like video, like
videos,
like a ridiculous term in and of itself.
What does that even mean?
Because like when I watch a Netflix movie, it's on a video and I watch
something on my
phone.
It's a video when I watch a webinar.
It's a video when I watch like, you know, like it's so, it's so complex.
It's like saying the written word, you know, like, that doesn't, you know, it's
all so
different.
You have to invest in it in different ways.
I know one of my, one of my favorite episodes or one of my favorite series that
NetUp TV
does is by somebody named Matt Watts, who does What's the Future.
He literally kind of takes some of those same conversations that you've got.
Talks about AI, talks about digital, talks about sustainability, walks the
streets, but
then gives opinions and it's, that's, that's to me what content is meant to do.
It's meant to be so interesting and so engaging.
They can bridge the person and bridge the moment and go back to no matter what
channel
I can watch this and kind of consume it no matter what.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that so much of, I like the idea of like the Coca-Cola analogy
where it's
like they, they don't want you to, they're not trying to market to people to
drink, you
know, 5,000 coke.
So they want everyone to drink one Coke a year, right?
And like, that's like the people who love Coke are going to go drink it a bunch
of it.
It's like they just want the sort of like engaging the non-consumer.
And that's how I think about content and the micro content and thought
leadership and all
that is like, if I can just get them to pay attention for 18 seconds, that's
great.
If I can see someone spends 45 minutes on a podcast, that's great.
It's like wherever they're getting value, however they're getting it.
And that's how they want to consume it.
Like that's totally fine with me.
It doesn't matter at all.
If like they spend an hour with me or 18 seconds, right?
I agree.
That's why there has to be so many different kinds of content, right?
Can't just have one motion.
I heard this is a funny thing.
I was talking to someone who's listening to one of our shows and they said, I
really
don't like the first part, but I love that second part.
So I normally skip it.
And I was like, great.
The fact that you love any of it is great.
The fact that you listen is great.
And is it helpful?
Like, what is it about the first section that you didn't like of, you know,
this is a different
show.
But like that's the sort of thing.
Like those are the insights that we have as marketers now that like are so
fascinating,
right?
It's like people skip this and now they watch this.
Like, why don't we just break out the second part?
We can run that as its own show.
Maybe there's other people feel that way like that.
That part is really exciting to me.
And digging into like, why?
Why do you like this?
What is it about it?
You know, et cetera.
Isn't it so amazing?
The modularity of what we do today is just off the charts.
I love that.
I love that.
Yeah.
And I think it's so incredible that when we're not there yet, but they were
getting data
that's really dynamic and cool.
And then with tools like qualified who sponsors this podcast and we love to
death.
And then with tools like qualified, it's like, Oh, once you show up to the
actual website,
then salesperson can talk to them.
So it's like, it's this, it's this dual way of doing things that you can be so
modular.
And then also, you know, present on the internet to hook into a sales
conversation.
Like, Hey, I know that you've consumed these seven things.
And like, this is what you like this, this and this like, Hey, we got this new
thing
that you probably are like and it can be really personalized.
Like, I just love that stuff.
Sounds like we're in the right businesses.
Right.
I know.
Okay.
So what about something that maybe you're not investing as much in or something
that
I don't want to say we're going to give budget away because we're not, but, but
you're more
cuttable budget item.
I don't actually know if it's cuttable.
I think that it's, it's the cheapest form of marketing when you think about any
communications.
I think what we're trying to do is be far more strategic when we think about
our communications
plan.
So for instance, we, we were, we're going to devote more resource instead of
supporting,
let's say executive communications teams and we're going to be supporting more
kind of
placements and thinking, you know, garnering stories for those executives,
which is different
than let's say internal executive support for how their internal communications
go.
So I think it's, it's not necessarily cuttable.
It's just a redirection of funds to say this element of what we were doing is
maybe not
as important as this part of our world now.
So I think that that's a, that's a where we looked at it and said priority wise
, we shouldn't
do this for the time being, we need to put all of the dollars in this one space
against
this, this one way to do it.
So that's, that's one good one.
I think the second one that I'd probably say is again, back to brand, we're
putting
the dollars in on the narrative, not putting the dollars in on a branding
campaign.
So it's taking the strategic dollars and saying, let's go get the basics right
and then not
spend money over on this so we can go spend money on some other things until we
get some
of this other stuff right.
You don't need to plant the flag and then defend the flag all in the same year.
Maybe you just spend some time to getting it right and planting it and getting
everybody
engaged versus, you know, saying, okay, now we're done.
Let's go, let's go out into the market.
So, you know, I think it's, it's strategic choices like those two that are the
important
part of our budget this year, but it's also kind of the, like goes back to what
I said,
I love the agility of marketing to be able to say, that's not relevant for me
right now.
I got to do this and I think it's really important to have a good, a good team
around you to
say, yep, you're right.
We support that.
You don't have to go do everything.
Some, some CMOs, I, I, you're shackled with everything.
I've been in that seat, right?
It's like, nope, you just got to peanut butter it all the way across.
I think that that's the hardest place to be in.
Yeah, I, I, I almost reject the notion of the quote unquote big brand campaign
as something
that is required.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, you need to have always on stuff and like part of your brand
campaign,
like you have a brand campaign called like NetAppTV.
You have a brand campaign called these events.
Like those are just as much brand as they are demand and it's how people
interact with
you.
How they interact with you at events, how you treat them and those, you know,
the types
of stuff that you're making like that's, that's why it's like tough to meet.
Like, well, what does that mean?
Does that mean just we're not going to run a bunch of like TV spots or a super
bowl ad?
Right.
And well, and that's, and that really comes down to what you're trying to
accomplish as
a company, right?
I think for us right now as NetApp, I think it's more important for us to
really get to
where we need to get to on the business, you know, continue to, to help our
customers
and our partners and people who want to work with us, confirm our strategy for
them and
make those violent about this brand.
Nobody feels solid about a brand just because they saw you during a World
Series game.
It's just true.
I'm not going to say never, right?
Because it's every market is dreamed to run a killer beautiful ad, you know,
creative
campaign.
That's like that.
I'm not going to say no to it.
Yeah, I just don't need it right now.
Right.
Right.
And that's, yeah, that's sort of what I was getting at is that like idea that,
that you
always need to have that like yearly flagship.
Okay.
This is what our, we're doing this year sort of a thing.
That's cool.
Also, it's just hard in B2B too.
It's so hard.
Brand is so critical in B2C.
I mean, it really is what drives B2C.
Consumer decisions are very brand oriented.
I think when you move over to B2B, it's more of a trust and a strategy kind of
confirmation.
It's not necessarily a, I'm going to buy you because I like your brand.
I mean, it's part of it, but not as much.
So I think it's hard.
Any favorite sort of like campaigns or little mini campaigns or things that you
've done over
the last couple of years?
Last couple of years?
Mm.
No, but I mean, like you look back at your career and you say, wow, I love
doing that.
I'm going to try to do it again.
So like one of those that I did at a three letter company was about 100 days of
customers.
And I definitely have thought about how I did it there and then implemented
something
kind of similar over here where it's like, how do you think about your customer
How do you tell that story?
Customer storytelling I think is really important.
But yeah, I had some, those are some of my favorite or ones that involve
customers because
it's just so, they get so real so fast.
Agreed.
Could not agree more.
I think it's like the most under invested part of every single B2B marketers
customer
stories.
Like it's just criminally just the way that they're told, how they're told the
frequency,
the volume, the like they're so cookie cutter, they're so done the same way.
They're so, and then you do like, we're going to do this cool shooting and we
're going to
do 10 of them or going to do them all this way.
And you're like, what about all the other ones?
Yeah.
And we tell them in every format and every way and everything a million
thousand times
and it would be probably worth it.
No, I agree.
I think too, one of the add, the outcroppings of that is the sponsorship.
You know, there's a lot of tech sponsorships.
We have our own sponsorships.
I like sponsorships to be a magnification of those stories where we're
investing in
our stores.
And so I see a lot of that more so in our strategy because it's easier to take
advantage.
It also is kind of like a nice partner to listen if you don't have a physical
alliance
or an OEM relationship or even an ISV relationship.
There might be companies who just want to do like marketing with you that you
can tell
a symbiotic story with.
So I think storytelling in general, if you're doing it from a customer
perspective, be smart
and be innovative, you don't have to cookie cutter it, but just tell more and
tell more
often and then extend that out.
Storytelling is so powerful to talk about relationships, tech relationships,
thought leadership relationships.
So we're really trying to, I'm trying to invest in that in our, in my own team
so that we
have more of those outbats.
And because I think they make a difference, they make a huge difference.
We did that once we had two customers that partner and partner marketing is
always like
the most fun, worst thing in the world because you're just like, you know, if
you can get
two partners that are great together, it's awesome.
If you have two partners that like aren't really, it's like super painful.
And we just went down the list, found all the shared customers and like did a
bunch of
those stories and it was freaking awesome.
It's a game changer.
I had a customer a while ago where I just knew him, it was a CIO of an
entertainment company.
And I was new into a role and I was trying to help people understand how to
tell a story
and I called him and I was, because I knew he was a great story teller and I
was like,
listen, I don't have a plan, but you're really good at this.
Do you mind if I bring a crew out and if I start shooting and if we formulate
the story
with you on site and he's like, yeah, come on.
So literally we were at this entertainment customer.
All across their company, we got permissions, we got permissions to say what to
say and
it ended up being probably one of the most watched, the most used storylines
because
they were an excited customer, they were willing, they were open.
We didn't do anything that caused any issue, but just the act of there's trust
there between
me and this customer to and the support and the love and the honesty to come
and just
unpack a really cool story.
I love that when that happens.
That's just so great.
I love that.
That is, that is fun.
You mentioned events.
You have NetApp Insight coming up October 23rd to 25th in Las Vegas at the MGM
Grand.
For our listeners, I want to go check that out.
We can let them show notes.
Events are huge.
You've mentioned a few times like how do you think about, you know, what's your
event
strategy?
You mentioned that the really cool idea of just like using those for customer
stories,
which is obviously huge, but how else are you thinking about doing events this
year?
Yeah.
We're trying to give people the opportunity to meet face to face.
I think Insight is interesting.
I think everybody, how do you cut through the noise?
Everybody does one, right?
How do you pick?
It's ridiculous to think that our customers don't or use only us.
They probably have got like 10 or 15 vendors.
How do we show up on that list?
I think we're trying to make that really compelling for our customers and also
make
it so it's like, listen, you might come this year.
You might not come this year.
We want you to come next year.
So trying to make it so that the event isn't a don't miss out.
There's no FOMO here.
If you're a customer of ours, we know you'll show up there and we want to make
sure we
meet you where you are and Insight.
If you come this year for Insight, which we hope you do, that's great.
If you decide you can't make it, then we've got a variety of other places you
can come
too.
We have great partners, great alliances.
We want you to show up there.
We'll make that all the same things that happen at Insight, happen at those.
We have fantastic EBCs, which we have mobile-y so that we can go around the
world any given
time.
Again, we bring the same messaging and same kind of great things to it.
So I think what we're really just trying to do is answer the one question is
how do
we get in front of and get face-to-face customers to net up, partners to net up
, right?
And that's what we're trying to facilitate.
We're not trying to jam it all in.
This has got to be the best ever.
It does have to be great and we're focusing on that.
But the conversation and the experience go hand in hand and if you are at one
and you
want to go to another one, great.
If you can only do one, we'd love to have you there.
Let's get to our next segment.
The desktop where we talk about healthy tension of events with your border
sales team, your
competitors or anyone else, have you had a memorable dust stuff in your career,
Gabie?
Many.
Many, many.
I don't actually think it's like, I hate to call them dustups, but we wouldn't
be doing
our jobs if we didn't go head to head with each other.
You can't be that nice.
So yeah, there are moments where we choose to show up and take advantage of
things and
you take the heat, comes with it.
I'll go way back in the time machine so I don't pull anybody who's current out.
But yeah, I went straight after a vendor and when I was young and youthful and
I hit him
right where it hurt and I got a cease and desist that went all the way up to
the CEO
and I got a little bit of a slap.
But at the end of the day, it caused a lot of conversations.
It made us think about how we message.
I think competition in Tuck is already hard.
It's rude to be rude.
It's smart to be strategic and to think about how you can position yourself
better than
anybody else and to take advantage of opportunities to do that where your
competitors are not
so I am wholeheartedly in the game and want to be in it but I am not going to
be underhanded
or rude about it.
Alright, let's get to our final segment.
Quick hits.
These are quick questions and quick answers.
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Gaby, are you ready?
I am.
Number one.
Do you have a hidden talent or skill that's not on your resume?
Yes.
I play piano.
Do you have a favorite book, podcast or TV show that you've been checking out
recently?
I know you were going to say something like that.
I link to Moir, sorry I like legal drama, it's probably back to the failed
lawyer in
me.
Books, I mean you pick one.
I'm all over the place but right now I'm reading Cooking, Smitten Kitten, her
most recent cook
book because I'm getting tired of cooking in the heat so that's the truth.
Ooh, what's your go-to like hot weather food?
The grill, which is so funny because I live in Arizona so it can be like 110
outside and
then you turn the grill on and put it up to 400 and you're like why am I out
here?
Yes, anything on the grill.
Shrimp, steak, chicken, veggies, love it, grill is my go-to when it's hot.
I don't want to be anywhere in the kitchen.
If you weren't in marketing, what would you be doing?
I'd be a photographer for National Geographic.
However, I have to change that now because since National Geographic fired all
of its
photographers and isn't going to do that anymore.
But I always wanted to do that.
What advice would you give to a first time CMO trying to figure out their
marketing strategy?
Don't focus on the strategy, focus on your customers and focus on the team
around you.
They're going to probably point you in the right direction.
If you make a marketing strategy that doesn't connect to either one of those
then you might
as well stop.
I love it.
This has been awesome.
Gaby, so fantastic.
Data management, cyber resilience, artificial intelligence, enterprise
applications, DevOps,
so many things that NetApp solves.
You can go check it out.
Gaby, any final thoughts here?
Anything to plug?
No, thank you.
I mean, NetApp is the place to go.
Watch us.
We're doing great, great transformational things and thank you Ian for inviting
me on
to talk about them.
[Music]
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