Smart Data and Smarter Sports: Gabie Boko, CMO for NetApp

00:02

Gabi Boko

Hey, this is Gabi Boko, Chief marketing officer for NetApp. And this is the Sports Business Conversations podcast from ABC Partners.

00:25

Dave Almy

Hey, this is Dave Alamy of ADC Partners, and welcome to another episode of the Sports Business Conversations podcast. I mean, look, I know there's a lot of podcasts out there vying for your attention, so really appreciate you stopping by here. So let's get started. Now, here are some things you might not ordinarily think of when the topic of sports business comes up. Information warehousing, analytics, data centers, cybersecurity. I know, like, typically speaking, these are not the topics that most fans concern themselves with when heading to a game. They just want their tickets to scan quickly, their payments to work seamlessly at concession stands, and that their smack talking posts load quickly. And this is where Gaby Boko, the CMO of NetApp, starts nodding enthusiastically. No one knows more than Gaby about how interwoven sports and technology are.

01:24

Dave Almy

That's why she's been leveraging Sports to help NetApp tell its story. Their partnership portfolio already includes the 49ers, Sharks, and Aston Martin F1, and it just got a whole lot bigger. NetApp just launched a new collaboration with the NFL and is now serving as their official Intelligent Data Infrastructure partner. In our conversation, we talk about the role of sports in marketing complex enterprise technology. We also dive into how she leverages her partnerships in storytelling, how she built upon an existing business relationship with the NFL to create a new partnership, and how she views measuring the effectiveness of her partnerships. The Alaska Native also shares the story of her most frightening bear encounter, which almost assuredly will have you canceling your Northern Exposure trip. So thanks for checking out my conversation with Gaby Boko, Chief marketing officer of NetApp. Hope you enjoy.

02:21

Dave Almy

Gabi, I read that you originally set on a path towards becoming a lawyer. Now, I think it's fair to say that law and marketing occupy slightly different spaces in this continuum that we are in. So let's get started. Can you talk about that trajectory and what initiated the pivot?

02:40

Gabi Boko

Yeah, I'll start with what initiated the pivot. You know, honestly, I. I supported myself through college and a little bit after, but by being legal secretary and a paralegal. And I was. The dream was to be Perry Mason. So, you know, put away the bad guys, right? Then you go into. Then you go into like, okay, I'm going to law school. And then I called my mom and I was like, I hate all of this. I literally, I hate all of this.

03:05

Dave Almy

Do you know how many times I've heard that story.

03:07

Gabi Boko

Right. And then I think I started crying and. And I went home. I actually went home. And I. By the way, I was born and raised in Alaska, so going home was a hard thing.

03:15

Dave Almy

Yeah. It's no small thing.

03:17

Gabi Boko

So I went home and I woke up the next morning and she handed me the newspaper, which, you know, I. I'm that old, but that old in Alaska was, go find yourself a job.

03:26

Dave Almy

Yeah.

03:27

Gabi Boko

So, you know, when you're.

03:28

Dave Almy

Start circling things.

03:29

Gabi Boko

Yeah. When you're presented with that, you're like, okay, what am I interested in? But she was always there, just saying, what are you interested in? What did you like? What do you not like? What did you like about law that drew you to it that now you hate? And what I discovered is that I really enjoyed the casework part. I enjoyed being in the library. I enjoyed doing the research. I enjoyed the stories that were behind them. And what that led me to was maybe I'm a. Some sort of storyteller and I need to be in a. In a line of business that allows me to tell stories. You know, outside of that, then it wasn't just marketing. I didn't have a degree in marketing. I didn't want to go there. I did have a degree in history and communications.

04:10

Gabi Boko

So I knew how to speak, I knew how to research.

04:13

Dave Almy

Turns out those are important.

04:14

Gabi Boko

Shockingly so. You know, and tech was. Tech was hot. So I. I answered an ad in the newspaper. Actually, not the. Not the Alaska newspaper, but in the Phoenix newspaper. For somebody who was going to go work at Insight, who is actually, shockingly, one of our. Our technology partners now.

04:35

Dave Almy

Full circle.

04:36

Gabi Boko

Yeah, they wanted to. They wanted to hire a marketing manager. And I went on the interview and I was like, yeah, I. I love this marketing thing. Turns out I met the guy who was interviewing me later at the bar. Cause I was bartending at the time or like supporting at the time. And he's like, I know you think you don't know how to do this, but I think you do. And so.

04:56

Dave Almy

Oh, so he was supportive right out of the gate like that he ran into you at the bar that night?

05:01

Gabi Boko

Yeah. After an interview that I'm pretty sure went pretty badly.

05:06

Dave Almy

Why do you think it went badly?

05:08

Gabi Boko

He said what he liked was my ability to communicate, my ability to talk, my ability, shockingly, to. To potentially tell a story. And that's. That's all she wrote.

05:17

Dave Almy

Did the law degree and doing the research. Do you feel like that? And that insight into storytelling, is that how that initial part of where you Thought you were going prepared you for marketing or were there other pieces as well?

05:28

Gabi Boko

I think it, I think that, I think I've always been excited and interested in the idea of marketing. You know, once I got the job, I was in it, right? Like some night school classes, some, you know, masters of class.

05:40

Dave Almy

Oh, you did not go gently.

05:42

Gabi Boko

Oh no. I was like, all right, I'm doing this. But also, so I really wanted to learn technology. Like one of the aspects of my first job was go hang out in a distribution center and learn how laptops are put together. I mean, who does that?

05:55

Dave Almy

So cool.

05:56

Gabi Boko

And then come back and describe every single part in really exciting terminology. There is no exciting terminology for a keyboard. Right. It's gray.

06:06

Dave Almy

Well, it's exciting if you like gray.

06:08

Gabi Boko

Right. So I think what excited me truly about it was I felt like I was at the forefront of something that was big. Technology was in an explosive moment. It wasn't just about laptops, clearly it was about software. It was about how things, how technology was changing the world. That was exciting. And the fact that I could go from having experience to turning that experience into something meaningful, that was it. That was what I wanted from a career. I wanted to feel like I was doing something interesting and that I wasn't just what I was on paper, drawing.

06:43

Dave Almy

People to those technology products. Because you've had a lot of stops along the way. I mean HP, SAP, Cognosage, NetApp. I mean these are big, consequential Silicon Valley behemoths in a lot of the ways. So I mean, very grateful. I mean also, but like I think when people think of technology, they kind of, they have the startup mind and you've certainly had that experience though. But that's a different animal working for those enterprises level company. So what was compelling about those? Were those just opportunities that presented themselves or did you seek some of these out because of what they were doing and how they were doing it?

07:23

Gabi Boko

I'd say the first part of my career was very much a. Just kind of wildly landing and then making a success out of it. Cognos was about, you know, parachute comes.

07:32

Dave Almy

Out, here I am, let's do this thing.

07:34

Gabi Boko

Wow, this looks cool. I have no idea what this is. No, I knew what every single one of them were. I, I really enjoyed the first part of my career was enterprise software. I am all in on that. I feel that's a defining moment. That's, that teaches you how to do, you know, narrative building on solutions that customers are trying to solve versus about the Technology, that's to me, really key part of being a marketer.

07:59

Dave Almy

Yeah, benefits over features.

08:02

Gabi Boko

If you're in B2B, then you sometimes get lost in the features. And I thought software was really compelling because it was solving problems. Right. I need to save money, I need to save resources, I need to streamline costs. I need to get a car out faster, I need to produce food that's safer, I need to, you know, save lives. Right. By sharing patient data. So all of that was really, I think, really valuable to me. But I think the problem solving that comes along with being in tech and the what was part of my background and how I got there was part of how I was able to make marketing a successful venture for me, inside technology. So I was always looking at how to make something better because I knew that the customers wanted us to make it better.

08:48

Dave Almy

Now, you're currently the CMO of NetApp, which may currently, after this podcast, everything's going to be completely clear, obviously, but it may be unfamiliar to some of the folks who are listening. So can you provide just that 35,000 foot view of the company, what it does, and how people may interact with this products and services in ways that they may not even know?

09:13

Gabi Boko

Yeah, yeah, that's. Thank you for asking me that question. I think most people, if you're in my industry, would see NetApp as a data storage company. We provide big boxes that fill vast cavernous spaces of data centers that store your data. We like to call ourselves an intelligent data infrastructure company because for us, in terms of what we provide with the box itself is a set of data infrastructure capabilities. That means we're not just here to think about where you put your data, but we're really interested in how your data needs to move. We're in all three big public clouds, right? Aws, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

09:55

Gabi Boko

That means if you're in one of those clouds or all of those clouds, hybrid, multi cloud we call it, then where your data lives there and how it connects back to maybe one of those great data centers is really important to us. How you data manage your data, how you're storing it, how you're governing it, how you're securing it. Security is huge, right?

10:16

Dave Almy

No, I can't imagine.

10:17

Gabi Boko

So when we call it intelligent data infrastructure, we're saying that we want your data infrastructure to be focused on where you need it, whenever you need it, and we want it to be safe and secure, which means that we want it to be intelligent from the start. That Means we focus on how to build that in. To the box, build it into the software that supports the box, and build it into whatever applications or workloads that you might need. So let's go make this really real. You know, we have. We just did our user conference and I'll. I'll throw a couple of stories out there. There is a company called ESA in Europe. They are the European Space Agency.

10:53

Dave Almy

Yeah. They are the European NASA.

10:56

Gabi Boko

Correct. And essentially all of the things, when you land on a comet, when you take pictures of the stars, when you, whatever you're doing, all of that data lives on NetApp. And in 20 years of living on NetApp, this is why it's so important to have an intelligent data infrastructure. They've never lost a single file.

11:14

Dave Almy

Yeah.

11:15

Gabi Boko

So go from.

11:16

Dave Almy

It turns out space travel. You do not want to be losing files, I would think.

11:19

Gabi Boko

I mean, they actually call. It's so great. They call their. Their data storage area the digital library of the universe. It's awesome. But let's go take it to what you and I are talking about. Let's go talk a little NFL or 49ers. Right. Let's go talk 49ers. I'm repping 49ers today.

11:35

Dave Almy

She is for those who are audio only, which is most of people here. There's a. There's definitely 49ers gear being sported for this entire show.

11:45

Gabi Boko

49Ers have Levi's Stadium. And when you think about having a fan experience in a stadium, you're saying, I don't want long lines. I want to make sure that when I walk through those doors, my family is going to have a really safe time and a fun time. I want to be able to order whatever I want to eat and make sure it's not going to get lost. I want to be sure that my ticket actually scans and that I can find my seat and there isn't somebody sitting in it. That's a fan experience. And they do that because they use data infrastructure that is intelligent from NetApp. So two examples for you. Those are two.

12:21

Dave Almy

There are many more, but this is, you know, the 49ers are not your only partnership. No Sharks, ducati, Aston Martin, F1, and most recently the NFL. Sort of a little tiny partnership you've got playing over there in the corner. Barely anybody will pay any attention to, I'm sure. So, you know, when you. We've talked a lot about intelligent data storage, things like security, which, you know, they're inherently technology challenges and problems and Solutions that were that you're putting together. Can you talk about, I mean, clearly sports is playing a pretty significant role in your marketing plans.

12:58

Gabi Boko

Yeah.

12:59

Dave Almy

So can you talk about like how that evolved, like why you and NetApp aligned with rights holders in that space? What was the solution that they were going to give to you?

13:12

Gabi Boko

I am very lucky that my predecessors who had my seat also saw the opportunity through sports. So I came into Aston Martin, Ducati and a few others. But I came into a company who already believed that sports was important. I also came into a company that believed that I needed to build brand pretty aggressively. So I spent the first 18 months of my of being in this seat going around to all of our sponsors. And by the way, we have sponsors across not just sports, but media and entertainment and a variety of others, most notably DreamWorks. But when you look at all of those together, the biggest thing that I wanted to accomplish in the first 18 months was are you using our product and what are you using it for?

13:58

Gabi Boko

Because no matter what I was going to do, I needed to understand how it was influencing and where I could get value back for the brand. One of the hardest things to do, I think is to tell a really good story, one that's very meaningful. So we took a long time to figure out what those were. And I'm super proud to say that every single one of our sponsors is on the path to or already at 100% of all their data storage on NetApp. Now think about this. When you think about Aston Martin or when you think about the sharks, right? When you go into the Shark stadium and every single thing that you see and you're getting video back on is NetApp based. So when you're getting a watching hockey, you're getting that experience because the data infrastructure is running on NetApp.

14:43

Gabi Boko

When you're looking at the Aston Martin car going around the track, that car in essence is a data beast all in of itself, right? And if you come off the car and into the back part of the garage there you'll see all of the data on our, on the storage right there. Because they have to deal with it that quickly.

15:01

Dave Almy

Does that ability to provide immediate context for your solutions. Because like sports is a common language, right? It is something that you don't need to speak the language necessarily. You barely need to understand the rules, but everybody kind of gets it. So many people are paying attention to it. Is it that ability to provide a platform for solutions that's so transferable to what other people are Doing. And in fairly complex ways. I mean, shooting a race car down a racetrack is no small thing. So being the backbone, in many ways for that, I'm thinking, as we talk about, storytelling plays a pretty central role in that, I would think.

15:39

Gabi Boko

100% it does. Remember, we. Remember what I said up at the beginning. This is not just about where you put your data, but it's how your data is moving. When you think about what's happening inside Levi's Stadium, or what's happening any game day for the NFL or any game day for the Sharks, or anything that's happening for the Aston Martin car, in and of itself, it's not about what happens 30, 60, 90 days after. It's what's happening in the moment. What am I capturing, what am I seeing, how can I interpret that and how can I take it back and all of that. Ultimately, I want all of our teams and leagues to be winners. Right? That's the goal. We want them to win.

16:19

Gabi Boko

Because what's impactful then is then coming back to other customers like ESA or some others, and saying, hey, listen, this is how we're moving data so quickly and being able to react to it. You can do this, too. And it looks like this and this. So it becomes a really. It becomes a really easy way to hopefully secure a story that we would not have been able to tell otherwise.

16:44

Dave Almy

Well, and it's also not like fandom has gotten really good at being patient, right? I mean, no. I mean, no, it's faster and there's immediacy and they want it the way they want it. Nobody's going to go to the concessions line and be happy with, oh, no, take another 60 seconds to process my credit card. I don't mind missing the next at bat. No big deal like that. I mean, I'm being a little facetious, but not very facetious. So that kind of immediacy plays right into the kind of stories that you want to tell.

17:10

Gabi Boko

It's that relentless pursuit of better. And we want to be at that cutting edge of how to. How to. How to help not just fans, but help these customers of ours, because they are customers. They're not just sponsorships. They are partners and customers that. That we work on these problems together so that they can make themselves better. Winning an F1 race, winning the Super Bowl. Note to self, 49ers winning, winning.

17:38

Dave Almy

I know you're listening, 49ers, right?

17:40

Gabi Boko

Winning any MotoGP. It's all we want to. We want to help them do that. Because in the End when we're celebrating as a. As a team and as a family and as partners.

17:49

Dave Almy

The partnership with the NFL is relatively new.

17:51

Gabi Boko

Yeah.

17:53

Dave Almy

Love to hear a little bit from you about how that became a target for NetApp, because honestly, in the United States, right. That is the. That is the monster as far as sports properties goes. So how did they become a target? And what were those conversations like, how did they unfold with the NFL?

18:11

Gabi Boko

You know, NFL was a. Was a customer before they were a partner.

18:16

Dave Almy

Okay. So existing relationships there.

18:17

Gabi Boko

It was an existing relationship. And it's one, by the way, that went through and we partnered slightly at one point about, you know, 10 years ago. And then we came back around. When I took the chair of cmo, I actually said, why? For the sponsorships that we've lost. Why did we lose them? And can we go back in? And just, I want to understand, I want to know why. And I had a conversation. I had a conversation with their deputy cio and. And I was like, just tell me what went wrong. And he told me a few of it. And then he asked me a really pointed question. He's like, why now? Why? Why? He's like, we're still using you. That's no big deal. But why do you want to come back in? And why are we talking about making this bigger?

18:59

Gabi Boko

And I was like, because of everything you just said, I think we can do this better. I think we just looked at each other as customer. Customer relationships. But I think we can. We can help you do what you want to do better. And I think we have the power to do that now and the understanding to do that now. And then it was a. Then it just turned a dime. Like, everybody switched on. My company, NetApp, switched on. The NFL switched on. And I'm not going to lie. I mean, we're all master negotiators. But in the end, we wanted to make it what was going to work for both of us. And I think we're really at a nice space that allows us to do that.

19:35

Dave Almy

You also come at that relationship, like you said, as an existing partner with a service that I'm assuming the NFL needs desperately as sports properties and leagues and other rights holders transform almost less from a game day event, but to, like a content creation animal that's constantly moving and evaluating what fans want and delivering them. I mean, we're not just talking small amounts of data here. I mean, we're talking vast amounts of data.

20:10

Gabi Boko

It's absolutely staggering, right? When I look at all the teams we do sponsor the sharks, Ducati, the 49ers and Aston Martin. There is an astounding amount of data and an astounding amount of complexity that we have to manage. But you take that and you magnify that for the NFL. 32 clubs, league opportunities, media, how much content they have to capture, how much of this is in the cloud, how much of it is in, you know, backend storage, how much of. How much of is needs to be secured, how much of it needs to be available? I mean, they actually say when we go into a stadium on a game day, that stadium becomes a data center for us, and we have to figure that out. So I think the.

20:51

Gabi Boko

We already knew complexity from teams going into the NFL and going in this time with them was really critical that we understood the magnitude of what they had, but in addition to the magnitude of where they wanted to go, and that was what we wanted to be. We wanted to make really special. Part of us was expanding internationally. That just takes magnitude upon magnitude in terms of how we're thinking about this.

21:18

Dave Almy

Can you talk about the. From the standpoint, you mentioned having the relationship with the league 10 years ago and then coming at it today, A decade of time in the technology world is like an epoch in geologic time. So how had their needs transformed? Did they understand what they needed? Or were you able to come in and say, here's a new way to think about how we want to leverage data to improve the media experience, the broadcast experience, the fan experience, the transaction experience, all those different things, or do they have a pretty good handle on IT going in?

21:53

Gabi Boko

No, they have. Well, I will say they have a stellar IT team and a stellar vision. So it wasn't about us going in and educating them. I think it was going in and resetting the table. Got to remember, just because we had a relationship 10 years ago, they still used our product. So even then, when we parted sponsorship rights, they still used our product. What we felt we wanted to go in and say was, how do we reset the table? You've been using this a certain way. How do we. If we want to come up a click, maybe 10 clicks, then this is what we're thinking. But we need your perspective on how. Where you're looking to grow. And then we did it together.

22:35

Gabi Boko

So one of the things that we did early on, before we even signed any paper, is we brought all of our engineering teams in. It's like, all right, let's just sit down, let's spend, let's whiteboard this whiteboarding, and let's Go figure it out. And there were some really stunning things that came out of that we're actually executing today. And again, their season. Right. The time with which to do this, it's like this. Yeah, right. We're not. We're not changing their world during season. There's no way I want to be responsible for that.

23:05

Dave Almy

So don't worry. We'll just like a switch right in the middle of the season. No big deal.

23:07

Gabi Boko

Two or three months that we're like, plan, plan, go. So our game day really is in their off season when we're, like, getting them ready to go. So there was a lot of. There was a lot of resetting of expectations. Again, you knew us as this. You've been using us as this. This is what we think we can do now, based, by the way, on all those other things that we talked about from other. Other teams. But what do you need? And then how do we find and fill that gap?

23:34

Dave Almy

So I want to reflect back on something you said about the relationship with the 49ers. I mean, we didn't talk a bit of the NFL to this point, but clearly, obviously, there's a relationship with the team, the 49ers as well. And you said, look, we're really passionate about bringing technology into the 49ers and seeing what they can do with it so that we can then go tell a really good story. So to this point, I think we've been Talking about what NetApp has been able to do and deliver for teams and leagues. So let's flip the script then. So as you start thinking about storytelling and how these leagues and teams are going to impact you, how is that going to start manifesting itself?

24:07

Dave Almy

What messages do you think people are going to resonate the most with as you start taking that content and shaping it for helping Tell the NetApp story?

24:17

Gabi Boko

Yeah, well. And I think you set it up at the top. Not Everybody knows who NetApp is. Right. This is one of the big moments that we believe we have to just even get our name out there. This relationship. Just. Even our logo in and of itself is already getting us feedback and interest. So that's the first thing.

24:35

Dave Almy

I mean, you're on this huge sports business podcast. I mean, my God, that's going to just be transformative in its own right.

24:41

Gabi Boko

I think so, too. I think so, too. I wouldn't have done it otherwise. No. But I think the second thing about brand is really how do we bring people into that environment? We're big on hospitality, but we're really big on making that hospitality meaningful. So we do, for the instance, on the 49ers, we end even with the NFL. We do this with, by the way, with every single one of our tech company, our tech partnerships. You can go visit the garage for Aston Martin, you can go visit the ice rink for Sharks, you can go behind the scenes. And MotoGP, we do the exact same thing. We. Once you see our name on screen and you can come see and touch kind of what's going on in the. In the. In the direct. The. I don't know.

25:22

Gabi Boko

I don't want to call it a hole. That just sounds rude. In the data, if you. In the layer. Yes. Back to what were talking about. I think if you can see the data in action, if you can see everything humming, then that really makes it easy to understand. And that's actually what's been happening to us, is people coming and saying, oh, I get it.

25:41

Dave Almy

Oh, yeah, it's funny to talk about data in a tangible sense, but, I mean, that's really what we're talking about here, being able to see it operating in such a way that people go, oh, yeah, okay, I think I get it.

25:50

Gabi Boko

But also, these. These. I got to say, the. The CIOs from and DVP's of technology across all of our sports sponsorships, we'll pull out CASA, because that's for the 49ers who were just talking about. I mean, he's incredibly giving and sits down with customers of ours and said, this is what I'm doing. This is what they sold me on. I wouldn't do this without this. And it really does help us kind of equate, again, a moment to a story, to somebody else's issues. And I'd say, last on brand, you know what? We're still tweaking our story, but what we've really discovered is that sports, the players, the drivers, the people who are the actual athletes are really. They're athletic geniuses. And we wanted to play into that.

26:37

Gabi Boko

We also believe that we, as a company, our job is with the data, is to unleash the genius of you as a cio, or you as your cio, as the director of IT and your teams. So part of what you're going to see from us is we've learned how to tell our story about being the intelligent data infrastructure company better. And we do that by helping our customers and our partners unleash genius. And the only way we do that is because they're already genius, and we're just Putting a little bit of data zhuzh on it.

27:09

Dave Almy

You're getting the magic wand in their hands through netapps. Just like you go through the Harry potter selection process. NetApp is just one of the ones you can figure out.

27:17

Gabi Boko

The magic hat.

27:18

Dave Almy

Yeah. The magic of the magic hat is what you are now. I think I'm fair to say that the relationship with the NFL we've talked about has been long, but the marketing relationship is relatively new. And I'm assuming that's a multi year partnership. How do you hope to see that relationship evolve over this period of time that you have with the NFL? Are the things that you kind of look at and gosh, maybe we should think about this? Like, where do you look down the road and think this is where we want to get to with this relationship?

27:45

Gabi Boko

Yeah, well, I think it's already changing. It's already changing, having impact on our brand. I got to tell you, one of the best moves we ever did was to see their future and get excited about it. Their international expansion has been absolutely great for us and it's something that we're really committed to because that's again, behemoth data. Right. But that also gets us more than national reach, that gets us international reach. And I think that's, that's about elevating NetApp, our portfolio, our platform, and it's helping us get that scale. You know, I think they could throw anything at us and I think we'd be excited by it. I think we're trying to find the thing. So we put ourselves in a lot of different little places. We're excited by where we are. Do we want to expand more? Sure.

28:32

Gabi Boko

I have no opposition to that. I think it's a partnership. Right. So as they expand and as we figure out what works, we'll change.

28:40

Dave Almy

Yeah. If you're solving each other's challenges, there's no reason not to think about how this could evolve into something else.

28:46

Gabi Boko

I mean, it's year round. Right. I mean, I think that when you.

28:48

Dave Almy

They've done a good job at that.

28:50

Gabi Boko

How you start to think about their data going from preseason to draft to season to postseason. I mean, that story, I think is desperate to be told and we're just excited to be along for that ride.

29:02

Dave Almy

Has anything surprised you about people's reaction, whether internal at the company or some of the folks that you deal with on a regular basis about the partnership with the NFL?

29:10

Gabi Boko

Yeah, I get a lot of anybody who is in B2C or anything commercial, they're like, oh, yeah, Good on you. Right? Like, yeah, that's. That's what you do.

29:17

Dave Almy

Big, high profile. I get it.

29:18

Gabi Boko

Yeah. Yeah. And then you get like B2B. It's like, okay, another tech company, another CMO spending money. And then internally for like the people in the States, they're like, yeah. And then people internationally were like, come on. So I think it's. What I love though is disproving and I love telling those stories because what. What's happening is that I just. We were just at inside and we just happened to do a couple of sessions with Aston Martin and the NFL and the 49ers together, and people internationally were just like, I need more of that. I never knew sports was as was so important to data. And they explained it in a way of something I watch on television that now I want to go take back. And when they then turn to their salesperson and say, yeah, that's cool, can they come visit me?

30:06

Gabi Boko

Then it's like, yeah, okay, we get this. Gaby, you did good. Right? So, you know, it's. You're always going to get. The people are like, yeah, but I, I honestly think that as a marketer, you're making choices. Right. I could never buy this much advertising and I'm getting this kind of exposure for, you know. Yes, I'm still spending money, but am I. I'm spending money and it's becoming meaningful.

30:29

Dave Almy

I've always used the expression or the idea that, you know, one of the reasons, yes, you could spend all that money on a brand campaign and go out and try to tell your story independently, but then you're trying to convince people of something without context.

30:45

Gabi Boko

Yeah.

30:46

Dave Almy

The thing that sports brings to the table is they do have that halo like we talked about earlier on, that everybody, you inherently understand and it allows you to tell the story in my mind more efficiently because you're building in all that pre existing content that just ends up benefiting your brand versus doing that from scratch.

31:04

Gabi Boko

Absolutely right. I mean, I think that people live their lives and interact with so many brands on so many different levels when they can then go back from something personal into their work and still see that continuity and understand even more deeply. I think that is a. Is a. Is a powerful moment for brand.

31:25

Dave Almy

I'm with Gaby Boko. She is the chief marketing officer of NetApp and Gabby. I got it. This is a tough one now, right? Because I mean, you know, I know. Not that all the questions haven't been tough, but you know, this one, because measurement and efficiency and defining Effectiveness for marketing programs is essential for everybody, but probably no more true than for technology companies, particularly those who are in data. Right. Looking at the data, analyzing the data, Sports partnerships can be challenging in that regard. They can be hard to measure. So what does success look like for you with. For both NetApp and its partnership with the NFL and some of the other ones as well. And obviously we're talking about the NFL, but clearly other ones there, too.

32:13

Gabi Boko

I think for all of it, we have four things that we measure, and were very specific in terms of why we did this. And by the way, we wouldn't have done it if any of these partnership sponsorships would not have been a customer. So that was critical to us, number one. Right. I think the measurement comes from, if they're already a customer, then how are they able to influence other customers? So how are they able to be a customer advocate for us right now, just in one week? From our sponsorships, we've generated, I'd say, close to $50 million in pipeline just from 20 conversations. That's. That kind of advocacy is something that reaches the bottom line and is super measurable.

33:01

Gabi Boko

And so that's really the primary one, I'd say the one that is the hardest to measure, but it's the most important one is the brand one. And we are looking at that through two lenses. One is, quite frankly, reach. Right. Like, how many eyeballs are seeing us and where are they seeing us, and are we able to capture that and see people actually come and engage with us? Right. That's the hardest one. Right. Because when you get millions of eyeballs, if you get. If you get 10,000, I think, you know, like, my CFO would be like, I don't know if that's worth it. Right. That's like 20 cents on the dollar. Fair. Fair. But then we go back to the demand. I wouldn't have had the demand if I. Right. So that's why we do multiple vectors on measurement.

33:46

Dave Almy

Yep.

33:47

Gabi Boko

I think the other one that is not as soft on brand is how our employees are able to use it. And. And there is such a positive tone with employees. They get excited about these sponsorships. They wear their gear, their families wear their gear. They are excited about it. And you know what? They sit and they watch television, or they. They watch a sporting event on TV and they send me notes and they say, gaby, I just saw our logo. And they're telling. They're at a. Maybe they're watching it with their neighbor or they're watching it with their friend. And you Know how those connections happen. Like, hey, that's that company, or isn't that company you work for? So that's a much softer metric. But it is so innately powerful to who we are as a company and our brand.

34:30

Dave Almy

I'm so glad you brought it up, too, because so often and justifiably. Right. We talk about partnerships in the context. Okay, what's it going to do for the brand? What's it going to do for Pipeline and all the things that are super important. But boy, that last one. Employees and engagement and having them be excited about what their company they work for is doing cannot be undersold as far as its importance. Right. Tough to measure.

34:54

Gabi Boko

There are best brand ambassadors. It's super tough to measure. And I'm not even going to say that I figured that out, but I know that's one of those moments where, you know, when they're walking and they're going up to the CEO or they're going up to another customer and they're saying, hey, did you know, it's there. And if you don't have that mechanism, I mean, no offense to marketers everywhere. I mean, and I've run a million brand campaigns and I know it as well. People don't talk about campaigns. They talk about things that are meaningful in their personal lives. And this is a way to make NetApp to make us as the intelligent data infrastructure company, to unleash genius. I mean, all of the stuff that we have, this makes it meaningful.

35:33

Gabi Boko

When my employees feel excited about where they work and take that forward. I can't buy. I can't buy. Spend enough money to make that happen.

35:42

Dave Almy

Gabi Boko, she is the Chief marketing officer of NetApp. Thanks for joining us today, Gabi. But before I let you go, I'm going to drop you into the lightning round series of questions. I don't know if that was like a oh, no goody. Or let's do this thing. Goody.

35:59

Gabi Boko

I did breathe hard. I was ready. I'm ready.

36:01

Dave Almy

There was. This is a little bit of perspiration coming down. All right, so here we go. All right, lightning round. First thing that comes to your mind as we discussed, you were born and raised in Alaska. What's the coldest you remember ever being?

36:12

Gabi Boko

I was born and it was 60 below zero when it was born. I used to walk to school. I used to walk to school at 40 below. So I remember the 40s and 50s and now, like, I. I'm sorry. 20 below. That's like I'm going out.

36:27

Dave Almy

No, you're going in shorts.

36:28

Gabi Boko

Yeah.

36:30

Dave Almy

Okay, good one. One of your many hobbies includes wildlife photography, which in Alaska means bears. What is your most memorable bear encounter?

36:40

Gabi Boko

I did have my jingle bells on. Please do not do what I do. If you're out in bear country, please make noise. Please wear your jingle bells. Don't be stupid. But yes. I was hiking up and I saw a big grizzly and I went after it. Turns out it was a mama with some bear babies. And I was like, holy crap. So I quick took the shot and I hightailed it out of there with my jingle bells jingling all the way. It's a great picture though. It's a great picture in cat eye.

37:06

Dave Almy

I'm sure it is a great picture. I hope you'll send it to me. I'll post it too. But what you didn't see is your host's eyes going wide when I heard grizzly bear with babies. Not. You were also apparently a woman of extremes growing up in cold Alaska and then residing in hot Arizona. Have you ever considered a mild climate?

37:24

Gabi Boko

No, no, I'm not that kind of girl. Plus, I always tell everybody, you know how cold it was when I was born. Do you not think that my soul is still, like, melting? I'm fine.

37:35

Dave Almy

Yeah. Where you were born and it was negative 60 degrees, Arizona's probably just starting to wheedle its way through that icy center.

37:43

Gabi Boko

Correct.

37:45

Dave Almy

Last, I'm going to give you a quote. You said you love risk. I don't feel alive or challenged if there isn't some level of risk taking to whatever I'm taking on. Are you a risk taker outside of business as well? And where does that show up?

37:59

Gabi Boko

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I don't think it shows up in like things like relationships or personal, but definitely bungee jumping.

38:08

Dave Almy

Off the top of buildings or anything like that.

38:10

Gabi Boko

Oh, no, that's. That's a given. No, I do like. I do like sport risk a lot. I'm not as athletic as I used to be, but yeah, I do like that. No, I'd say, you know, I'm a pretty direct person, so if something seems a little sketch, then I'm in perfect.

38:25

Dave Almy

Gaby Voco, thanks so much for the time.

38:27

Gabi Boko

Absolutely. I'm glad to be here. And let's do it again.