 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering ServiceNow Knowledge 2018, brought to you by ServiceNow. Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge 18. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Dave Vellante. We are theCUBE. We are the leader in live tech coverage. We are joined now by Alan Marks. He is the Chief Communications Officer of ServiceNow. So thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you, great to be here. So the new brand identity of ServiceNow is we make the world of work work better for people. That's your baby, you came up with it. So tell us a little bit about your creative process and coming up with that idea and why it works for ServiceNow. It's been a team effort and we think of that identity as our purpose as a company. And as John talked about in his keynote today, purpose is really the center of who you are as a company and what you believe in and what you aspire to do. And I think it's so important in your own life to have a sense of purpose and meaning. And I think that's true for companies as well. Companies are just collections of people, right? And so as we thought about the next phase of growth for ServiceNow and how do we build the company awareness and build the brand, we started with, well, who are we and why do we exist? And so we did a process where we met with the leadership team. We did employee focus groups around the world. We met with about a dozen customers to just talk about how do you think about ServiceNow? What does ServiceNow mean to you? And that's what led to our purpose statement. We make the world of work work better for people and really emphasizing people because that's something we believe deeply in that technology should enable people. And what we do is really trying to help people have more meaningful work, take some of the routine tasks out of your job so you can focus on things that matter more to you and create more meaningful work for you and create more productivity for your company and your enterprise. I'm always, oh, go ahead, please. Well, so we started with our purpose and then that led to the brand identity. We have a new tagline, Works For You, so ServiceNow works for you. It's kind of our version of a just do it kind of tagline. And so we've got our purpose statement. We've got a new brand identity, what you see here at Knowledge and we've got a new tagline called Works For You and you'll see us rolling that out now more. This was the launch of it. We spent the first quarter rolling it out to our employees. We did a global tour and eight locations around the world rolling out our purpose to our employees and now this is the first public launch of the new brand. I was fascinated by that process. I love that you guys start with why. Big fan of Simon Sinek, Google him, if you don't know him, his head talk is fantastic. And we heard John Donahoe this morning talking about, started with why. It's okay, so you do all this research but somehow you have to put that into a creative package. The idea of putting the person in the center of the logo and whether it's color scheme or little snippets. I mean, how do you come up with that? Is that just in your DNA? Is that really by committee? I mean, how does that all work? Well, we put together a creative team. So this is the fun part, once you've landed the purpose. This is take out the crayons and let's start decorating something, right? And so when we landed our purpose and we said, well, if we're really focused on technology enabling people, the former logo of the company was the power button. So that was more purely about technology. And so we started playing. We had a creative team we put together. We had our in-house creative team. We also were using some outside creative support and we started playing with, well, how can you change the power button to more reflect people? And that's what morphed into the logo today of really using the O in the word now to symbolize people, to symbolize the you and works for you instead of the power button as a symbol for the company. So you, the last Knowledge, Knowledge 17, you had just started. Just started first week. First week on the job, trial by fire here. So tell us a little bit about your first year, reflect on some of the things that made it surprise you during the year, some of your challenges. What would you say? Well, it's been wonderful. I say to Pat Waters, our Chief Human Resources Officer, every new employee should start the week of knowledge. It was just such a wonderful way to start. I literally did sign the papers and got on a plane and came to Knowledge 17. And so to come into the company, being able to experience this and meet our customers and really understand the culture of the company was an extraordinary way to get grounded in the company and understand, you know, service now has just a deep commitment to customers and listening to our customers and then responding to their needs. So given the brand work I've done over the past year, that I couldn't think of a better way to start. And then after Knowledge 17, a week or two after that, I went down to San Diego and spent an afternoon with Fred Luddy, our founder. And I just said, Fred, tell me your story. And two hours later, you know, Fred was still talking, such a wonderful person. And what struck me in that conversation with Fred is we were spending really two hours talking about the history of the company and why he founded it. And I realized he was talking mostly about people. He wasn't talking about technology. And Fred's a product guy. And so it just, it started to hit me from day one just how focused we are on helping people and helping companies succeed and our customers succeed. And that's really what led to where we are today and the branding. And so it's an amazing company, amazing culture. And what we're trying to do with this brand, I mean, the product is well-known. You know, we've got deep customer loyalty, but the company is not that well-known. And so as we think about growing the company and reaching other stakeholders, as we think about expanding our business with existing customers and engaging new customers at the C-suite level, we felt we needed to really elevate the company. And that's what this is about. How do we continue to have a strong product brand but elevate the company brand both to drive greater awareness of the company but then also the talent brand piece is important as well. And how do we use our brand identity and our purpose to engage the right talent worldwide as we continue to grow and recruit from around the world? And that's a big part of why John Donahoe was brought in. I remember I was talking to Frank Sluman. I'm like, Frank, you're so young. He goes, look, we found the right guy to take this to the new level. So, and you know, he's been kind of working at it for a while. So the timing was perfect. But as you do all this research, as you talk to customers about the future of work, I mean, they're telling you what they need, maybe what some of their challenges are, but you guys still have to figure out like how to get there. It's almost like, you know, Steve Jobs inventing this smartphone. Nobody told them, no customer told them, this is what we need. So your minds have to put that together. As you, I know it's only a year in, but what are you seeing in terms of your ability to shape the future of work? Well, I think it starts with the service now platform. And to me, that's a secret sauce. A lot of people are focused because people know the IT, SM, product suite and how the company, the flagship product of the company. And a lot of people think of the company in that way. But it's really the platform itself that can cut across the enterprise and connect different workflows and different work streams, particularly work streams across functional areas. And the ability to understand that and leverage that with our product suite, that really is unlocking the potential of how we can partner with a customer and really drive transformation in the way enterprises operate and drive transformation in how work gets done in a company. So with your consumer background, you know, right? Okay, did you like when you first heard about service now say, really IT service management? Or did you say, hey, why should the consumer guys have all the fun? I want to bring this to the enterprise. Exactly. Well, part of it, you know, this is my first job in the B2B world. My background is in consumer. But as John has talked about, we really do see the things that we've enjoyed as consumers coming into the workplace. And so I really do see a lot of B2C type creative thinking and ideas coming into the workplace to drive this transformation. And that's so exciting to take the best of traditional B2B marketing and branding and bring in B2C to help reflect this new wave of technology and how it's changing the way we work and the way we think about work. As you're now embarking on this strategy to get service now, to have wider recognition in the market and your background in consumer, particularly at Nike, what do you think makes a great brand and what really makes it sort of take hold of a customer's imagination? Well, it's a great question. And I would go back to purpose. I can't say enough about purpose. A company that is clear about who it is and why it exists and what it aspires to achieve in the world and the impact it aspires to achieve in the world. That's what connects people emotionally, right? You can connect to people intellectually, but it really connects heart and mind. That's the secret sauce. And you see consumer brands, obviously that's what they do, right? That's what you have to do. In the B2B world, you see a broader spectrum. But that ability to say, how do we take this technology and the more intellectual aspects of our business and really connect it to how you help people and how you enable people and connect it more emotionally, I think that's the unlock. And today, you look at millennial employees today, they really do care about what is the purpose? What's the higher value of working for this company versus that company? And what kind of impact are we going to try to have in the world? And it really does matter. I mean, you see it, I see it today where you're talking to potential employees and they're asking that question about, well, if I'm going to join this company, what are the values? Tell me about the culture of the company. And I think at the end of the day, culture and talent really is what differentiates a company. And strategy is obviously important, but companies that have strong purpose, strong brand, strong identity, and that gets expressed through strong culture, that gets expressed through the kind of people they attract to the company, the kind of talent they have in the company. I think that's what creates great enduring companies over time. So, thinking about transparency, I go back to Fred, the self-deprecating humor, always, you know, if there's a wart in his software, he talks about it, he's not shy about that. Frank continued that tradition, certainly with Wall Street, and I'm sure employees, and Mike Scarpelli, very much transparent, and John is continuing that tradition. It's obviously worked for Wall Street. You've built trust with investors. How do you take that brand and build trust beyond the investor community? And I mean, it's a challenge. What are you trying to accomplish there? You'll see us marketing more, and that's part of what you see here, the expressing the brand in a bigger way. You'll start to see us do more marketing at the company level, in addition to what we already do at the product level. You'll see us do more marketing directed to talent and being a great place to work. You'll see us expressing this in a variety of ways, the kind of culture we create, what we do in the community, the broader impact we have in the world, and so I think it's all of those things together and communicating, but ultimately you've got to walk the talk, right? It's not just the marketing. You've got to be authentic in what you're doing and have people experiencing you in an authentic way to really create that sense of trust and engagement over time. And you see we've got that today in our customers. The loyalty we have with our customers, the renewal rate the company has with our customers, and now we're just trying to continue to build on that and engage other stakeholders as we grow as a company. So making work better, okay, that's good. A new sort of focus or expanded focus. But what do you want people to say about you? How do you want them to describe you? What are the adjectives you'd like them to use? Human, work for people, right? Make work better for people. I think we're a human company, we're an authentic company, we're a company that cares, we're a company that really understands technology should help you. It shouldn't be technology for technology's sake that the end result should be making your life better and we're trying to do that in a work context. And I hope people look at our branding and our identity and how we show up in the world and think that's a company I want to be associated with as an employee, as a customer, as an investor, as a partner, as a stakeholder, because that's a company that really cares about people and really understands how to apply technology and innovative technology to help people have better lives and in this context have a better life at work. We've been talking a little bit about how your company is working to attract the best talent. And then it's really at a time where sort of the skill sets are changing and we were talking about Fred not being an IT guy, he's a product guy, but you really need this sort of confluence of the two together. You need people who are thinking about the technology but then also about the human idea. How hard is it to find the right people or do you just say we can train them? What's your approach? Well, it's always hard to find great talent all over the world, it's very competitive, right? And particularly in technology, but I think it gets back again to purpose and culture really being clear about who you are. So a potential employee can say, is that a place that I want to work at? When I see the purpose of service now, does that resonate for me? Do I want to, if I'm an engineer, do I want to create product that really is focused on helping people have better work lives? And again, it really, purpose is the essence of it. And I think that really is a center of everything. And if you can connect people with your purpose, then you will attract the right talent and it'll build on itself through word of mouth and reputation that that's a company that I feel attached to and that I want to be a part of and I want to work at. Well, Alan, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It's always great to have you. Great to be here, thank you. Thanks, Alan. I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante. We will have more from Service Now Knowledge 18 just after this.