Chief Marketing Officer, NetApp Inc
Gabie Boko, NetApp | NetApp Converge 2024
Gabie Boko, Chief Marketing Officer, NetApp joins theCUBE hosts Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight for this segment of NetApp Converge 2024.
About Gabrielle Boko
Gabrielle Boko, Chief Marketing Officer at NetApp, discussed the company's "intelligent data infrastructure" strategy during appearances at NetApp Insight 2024 and NetApp Converge 2024. She described the concept as "an idea that has a connected road map and proof points" rather than a single product, and said the company's approach involves integrating security, intelligence, and unified data management across block, file, and object storage. Boko stated that NetApp has embedded AI into tools such as BlueXP for ransomware monitoring and cloud operations, and she characterized generative AI as an opportunity for customers to extract value from their data more cost‑effectively and securely. Boko outlined her marketing strategy as "less is more," emphasizing fewer, more resonant messages to enable salespeople and brand ambassadors to tell a consistent story. She noted that NetApp deliberately avoided "AI‑washing" by focusing on its existing intelligence and legacy story. Boko also highlighted the importance of the company's ecosystem, including deep integrations with ONTAP, hyperscalers, and partners, and said the company aims to make functionality "built in, not bolted on." She described data as "the new product" and said intelligent data infrastructure is the product NetApp delivers to help customers protect, optimize, and leverage their data.
Transcript (30 segments)
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Rebecca Knight0:10
Converge. I'm your host Rebecca Knight, sitting alongside my co-host and analyst Rob Strech. Rob, we're here at the MGM. The room is starting to fill up. We're feeling the buzz.
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Rob Strech0:21
Yeah, I think again, it's really about this kickoff for the year and getting the year in their FY25 started. And really, all of these announcements that were made today are just really best in class and how that's going to help really propel through the year the momentum that NetApp saw in 2024 as well.
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Rebecca Knight0:40
Exactly. Well, we have a great new guest to talk more about this. We have Gabby Boko. She is the Chief Marketing Officer here at NetApp. Thank you so much for coming on.
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Gabrielle Boko0:48
I am so happy to be here, fresh from the main stage.
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Rebecca Knight0:52
Fresh from the main stage. So we have a lot to get into today, but let's start by talking about AI because the value from AI...
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Gabrielle Boko1:12
Yeah, you know, NetApp's been in AI for a while now, actually. We have embedded AI in a lot of our tools. BlueXP, which is a good control plane where you're monitoring your ransomware, some of our CloudOps solutions where you're able to optimize your flow in between the cloud. It's literally everywhere. I think what we're excited about is the opportunity that GenAI brings to that, not for our products so to speak, but for our customers' workloads as they think about how to manage their data management, how to think about data more completely, and to allow GenAI workloads and use cases to really start to bring those to life in a much more cost-effective and secure way.
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Rob Strech2:12
So we're talking about this and that, how that really the brand, because it's all NetApp under the hood, but really these different form factors and different approaches.
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Gabrielle Boko2:21
Yeah, you know, I really think that when we sat and looked at what we wanted our brand to be, we wanted to really go back to legacy and not be so far forward that we felt that maybe out of touch or out of reach, but we didn't want to go so far back that people stopped thinking of us in all these other areas that we've been experimenting in and innovating in. So what was really important to us is to redefine some of the language we used. You saw that today with our announcement around the new AFF Series, right? We're redefining unified to be more than just a protocol, but to be how you are integrated. Unified can be so much more.
That was part of our legacy of innovation, so intelligence was big there. So you kind of get that we're redefining infrastructure to be on-prem, in the cloud, new unified storage. We're redefining intelligence, but at the core of that is data. We really came out of this saying it's about our customers' data. That's what we're here for. We're here to protect it, we're here to optimize it, we're here to go where their data goes. So when you thought about those three things together, that gave us intelligent data infrastructure. And I think it gives us forward momentum, innovation, as well as that legacy we talked about.
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Rob Strech3:46
So I mean, we're going to continue to talk about the future and looking forward because it's not just a brand refresh. It's actually what's going on at the company. It's sort of the outward marketing and positioning, but also what's really happening underneath.
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Gabrielle Boko4:10
That everybody is thinking about because the amount of data everybody has, right, it's increasing, the complexity that comes with that, clearly the cost that comes with their increasing amounts of data. So when we thought about data infrastructure, we knew that it could evolve with us and with our customers' needs. I don't know what our customers' needs are tomorrow, but I know that they're going to continue to have data needs. So I really think that data infrastructure is the grounding, if you will, of what we want to be committed to for our customers. If you start to think about how it has grown for us, it almost is like a holy cow. We were always here, we were always doing that. When I went out to customers and partners and analysts and even people who didn't notice, they were like, yeah, you were.
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Rob Strech5:11
It is the new product, I think, and I think customers will continue to just say we want to evolve with you and we want to help you evolve it. The storyline, I think what has been really interesting in getting prepared for this, we saw that you had your Cloud Complexity Report and there was the IDC AI Maturity Model. You know, we do our own research, but we think that looking at everybody's, because all these data points are really pointing in very interesting directions. And I think for the customers, how did you see the data coming out of the Cloud Complexity Report?
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Gabrielle Boko5:45
You know, I think it was really interesting because we started off with a Cloud Complexity Report and then because of the rise of AI and because we relaunched our brand, it was like all of this other new data was just kind of saying the exact same thing.
It's telling in that Cloud Complexity Report, right? As you think about where your data is going, you have to think about what tools are you going to use for that. Are you going to continue to use the cloud? Do you need to optimize that with AI? And so what I love about us doing surveys and data profiles like that is if we really are committed to data, then showcasing and telling that story with data is the best thing because our customers, clearly some analysts too, coming back to us and saying this is cool, we love this, give us more data and we'll be better partners with you. So I like that rub.
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Rob Strech6:44
Yeah, I mean, I again went through it. It was like 37 pages long or something, which I thought was fantastic because there's so much good data in there like you said around AI, not just Cloud Complexity.
And hyperscalers and even with the partners like you have here that do colo. One of the things I thought was really interesting in there was also like some of the things where sustainability took a step down, but people were also saying here's where I'm stealing budget from from an AI perspective. It wasn't about the data. The data still was where they were investing. How did you see and how do you see the partners really leaning into this that are here today and really taking that and saying hey, this is how we're going to move forward?
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Gabrielle Boko7:46
Yeah, I think that the most important part of any good company is their ecosystem. And clearly our ecosystem, we've tried to broaden it. We've got strong partners, partners who are able to build the kinds of things you talked about where again it's built in. I like that term built-in because when you think about the entirety of that ecosystem, what you're really seeing is we're not just going and doing point solution or separate solution bolt-ons. We are literally building that functionality into every single one of their environments, every single one of our environments, so that they can be successful. And that's really where our partners are starting to lean and say I want to build this workload, this use case. I was just over here the other day with WWT who showcased we did this with ONTAP, this with your AFF, and this with... I can't remember what else, it was really loud. But they said this is a workload that we're running on NetApp and we couldn't do that without you. So I think about intelligent data infrastructure as that ecosystem. It's bolstered by that.
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Rob Strech9:10
The announcements that you had today, it had wide ranging for data protection and cyber resilience and like you said built-in, right? Built, not built on, not sidecar, not things like that. Do you see that as really one of the strengths and things that you're leaning into? I mean, George was talking about it even just a minute ago. It seems to be one of the strengths that everybody's trying to copy in the market around NetApp is hey, it's built-in versus built-on. And you know, again, some are more successful than others about doing that, but nobody's been as successful as NetApp in that.
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Gabrielle Boko9:48
I think it's a key to our success, absolutely. I think a lot of people engineer a platform by saying I'm going to build a platform and then it's about being integrated and built-in. All of the functionality needed to be there. So it's almost like we've been building this very intricate, accessible data platform for over a decade and now it's just kind of like when our competitors see it, they're like oh, maybe we should have done it that way, which I love, right? Because that's really what we are. We are this profound data infrastructure, this platform if you want to use that word, that's focused on how to bring the right things to our customers and doing the right thing with our data. And you don't do that by thinking in a silo of this product, this product, this product, and then oh gosh, I got to go integrate those, right?
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Rob Strech10:47
I want to get into that a little bit more because I mean, a technology company is only as good as its ecosystem. And so how are you working with customers to determine what their needs are?
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Gabrielle Boko11:10
We do customer advisory boards, we do partner advisory boards. But I think what we really like about our approach is that it's constant, right? When we're in the trial stage or we're in the alpha or beta stage, it's not the first time the customers are seeing it. Quite frankly, it's because a customer asked for it. It's because a partner said I'm at a customer, I need an X. So we really, you know, instead of just saying it as a platitude, we really embrace it and say we're thinking about this ecosystem, what do you think? And then we go off and we make sure it fits into the roadmap. And I think that makes it great. I think the other thing that we think about quite frankly is what are your use cases? Are your use cases or workloads working for you? How do we bring those in? You've already spent the time on them. How do we make them more apparent and more obvious and accessible to everybody else?
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Rob Strech12:10
So we had a line about not AI washing. Now you're in marketing. How hard was it to not try to AI wash everything? Actually, her line... I'm just going on the record, it was actually her line. Well, but I mean, how hard is it not to? Because there's so much noise out in the market and everybody's like... I mean, even some of the stuff George was talking about with metadata and things like that. There's a lot of things you can lean into and a lot of technology there.
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Gabrielle Boko12:39
You know, it was very tempting. And when you're rebuilding messaging and narrative, there is why we didn't make it a campaign, right? We wanted to really get back to our core, to our gut story. And by the way, my boss is a great advocate. When he picks up on something, he goes with it. So if he wants AI wash, then I'll give it to him. But everybody had an opinion. Everybody...
Our other messaging has been great. It's been solid. It's definitely put us in a position to be successful. But I think sometimes it got maybe a little bit forward of where the market and where the customer was. When we talked about data fabric, data fabric is really smart and it's still embedded in what we do, but we got a little too far forward on our skis. Same with cloud. We embraced cloud. We embraced it before all of our competitors did, but we got a little too far forward and our customers were like we're not there yet. So I think we were really focused on saying this story has to be true to us and we need words that signify we know that this is going in the market. We don't want to be like everybody else who has now put AI or AI or something in their narrative. We already know we've been here for a decade. We already know where we're going. Let's just be confident in the story.
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Rob Strech14:10
What is your overarching strategy as the CMO of NetApp in terms of how you're driven to solidify your position in this very competitive market?
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Gabrielle Boko14:22
Yeah, oh wow. Very, very competitive. I respect all of my fellow CMOs. They are very, very hard acts to compete with. However, I do believe that what makes us strong is by being focused and prioritized. That brand narrative has been the basis of how we think about doing demand, obviously here today and for the next couple of days, how we're training our salespeople. The less messages that come at them, the less kind of things that you're throwing at them, the more compelling you can actually be. So my strategy is...
And that compelling when they go tell that story, it's true. With accessorizing, it's true with data infrastructure. Less is more.
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Rebecca Knight15:17
Thank you so much, Gabby. A real pleasure having you on the Cube.
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Gabrielle Boko15:19
Thanks for having me.
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Rebecca Knight15:21
Thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight for Rob Strech. Stay tuned for more of the Cube's live coverage of NetApp Converge. You're watching the Cube, the leader in technology enterprise coverage.