Matt Diteljan, CEO of Glacier explains how influencer marketing works as a strategy to reach key younger demographics

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[00:32] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Calgary's podcast with Mario Tonagousi on Canada's podcast network.
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is Matt Ditteljan, who is CEO of Glacier, a Calgary-based marketing and advertising company.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today, Matt.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Mario.
[00:56] SPEAKER_01: Happy to be here.
[00:57] SPEAKER_01: Let me just start by asking you just a little bit about Glacier and what you guys do.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: Sure.
[01:06] SPEAKER_02: Glacier, we're an advertising company and we specialize in advertising good things to kids.
[01:12] SPEAKER_02: We advertise things like higher education, health and wellness, career opportunities, that sort of stuff.
[01:18] SPEAKER_02: We actually have a large high school ad where ad network in high schools all across North America.
[01:25] SPEAKER_02: We have a large student influencer advertising network and we do a lot of digital marketing.
[01:30] SPEAKER_02: We do, I'd say the majority of our clients are in higher education, so colleges, universities, that kind of thing.
[01:36] SPEAKER_02: We also do work for governments as well and we do a lot of, we're doing some work right now for mental health charities.
[01:42] SPEAKER_02: Mental health is really a big focus that we're really working on right now to help make the next generation the most mentally resilient generation ever.
[01:51] SPEAKER_02: That's Glacier and in nutshell.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by kids?
[01:56] SPEAKER_01: You target what kind of age group?
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: Sure.
[02:00] SPEAKER_02: We typically work with 13 to 24.
[02:03] SPEAKER_02: That's kind of our wheelhouse.
[02:05] SPEAKER_02: So we have, like I said, the largest high school ad network.
[02:07] SPEAKER_02: So we work with a lot of high school students.
[02:09] SPEAKER_02: That's an audience that we work with quite frequently, but then sometimes we go a little bit younger and then sometimes we go a little bit older as well.
[02:17] SPEAKER_02: But that 13 to 24 age bracket.
[02:19] SPEAKER_01: Okay, and tell me just a little bit about the history of Glacier.
[02:23] SPEAKER_01: When did you start it and I guess the why?
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: Why it came into existence?
[02:29] SPEAKER_02: Sure.
[02:29] SPEAKER_02: So we started in May 2012.
[02:33] SPEAKER_02: That was in my last year at university.
[02:35] SPEAKER_02: I started with a business partner in mind.
[02:37] SPEAKER_02: We were friends from school and we had been in student government together and everything like that.
[02:42] SPEAKER_02: And we started it.
[02:43] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I wish I had some beautiful story about the, you know, this big why, this big purpose.
[02:48] SPEAKER_02: But honestly, we just wanted to start a company at that time.
[02:51] SPEAKER_02: And we just ran through a laundry list of ideas of companies that we could start.
[02:55] SPEAKER_02: And we initially came up with the idea of putting ads on table tops and in the student center at, we went to the University of Calgary.
[03:05] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[03:05] SPEAKER_02: And it was always a student marketing company.
[03:07] SPEAKER_02: We always loved finding creative and clever ways of advertising to students.
[03:11] SPEAKER_02: We had done that in student marketing or student government, I should say.
[03:15] SPEAKER_02: And then we started selling the ads in between classes.
[03:18] SPEAKER_02: And then we wanted to scale the company near the end of our university 10 year.
[03:23] SPEAKER_02: And we started our last year's school.
[03:25] SPEAKER_02: And we decided to try and scale.
[03:29] SPEAKER_02: And we ran into some really fierce competition and turns out that it was a very crowded market already for advertising to college students.
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: And we decided why not try a little bit younger and go to high school students, no one had done it before.
[03:40] SPEAKER_02: And we figured we could do it.
[03:42] SPEAKER_02: And so we did, we got a few high schools on board.
[03:45] SPEAKER_02: They were really excited about the idea.
[03:47] SPEAKER_02: And then we really thought to ourselves, you know, who would be great to advertise this audience?
[03:53] SPEAKER_02: And we knew that it was always, it's a very impressionable demographic.
[03:56] SPEAKER_02: And so we have a big responsibility to this day.
[03:59] SPEAKER_02: Ethics are still a huge part of what we do in a big part of our philosophy.
[04:04] SPEAKER_02: And so we decided why not higher education?
[04:06] SPEAKER_02: It's such a good fit.
[04:07] SPEAKER_02: They want high school students always, they're trying to build brand.
[04:10] SPEAKER_02: The high school principals would like to be on board.
[04:12] SPEAKER_02: And it's great for kids to show them the variety of different options.
[04:15] SPEAKER_02: So that's really how the idea started to synthesize.
[04:18] SPEAKER_02: And then it started to spread all across Calgary.
[04:22] SPEAKER_02: And then before we knew it, Alberta and NBC and then Ontario.
[04:25] SPEAKER_02: Now we're, I think 20 or 30 states in the US as well.
[04:28] SPEAKER_02: So we're international and well, they're gathering on other products.
[04:32] SPEAKER_02: And then from there we started realizing the impact we could have on kids.
[04:36] SPEAKER_02: So it's really snowballed into that.
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, Matt, how do you reach that demographic, that age group?
[04:44] SPEAKER_01: Like what are the key things that, you know, would resonate with them?
[04:51] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it all really comes down to the right channels.
[04:54] SPEAKER_02: And then the right creative on the right channels.
[04:57] SPEAKER_02: And we've seen this a lot with a lot of our clients, especially in higher ed,
[05:02] SPEAKER_02: higher ed, it's typically a little bit slower to adopt than some of the other industries.
[05:05] SPEAKER_02: But they just are not on the right channels.
[05:09] SPEAKER_02: You know, we do a lot of research to find out where higher ed is advertising and where students are.
[05:14] SPEAKER_02: And it's just a complete disconnect.
[05:16] SPEAKER_02: You know, like 85% of kids are on Snapchat and TikTok.
[05:22] SPEAKER_02: And yet less than 10% of higher ed is advertising on Snapchat.
[05:26] SPEAKER_02: And less than 2% is advertising on TikTok.
[05:28] SPEAKER_02: So the first step is just getting the channels right.
[05:32] SPEAKER_02: And we see a lot of clients that are just not doing that correctly.
[05:35] SPEAKER_02: They're still trying to advertise on radio to get to Gen Z.
[05:38] SPEAKER_02: They're still trying to advertise on Facebook even to get to Gen Z.
[05:41] SPEAKER_02: And it just doesn't work.
[05:42] SPEAKER_02: Or the news.
[05:44] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[05:45] SPEAKER_02: Like that, we still see higher ed advertising and newspaper trying to get to higher ed to students.
[05:49] SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't make any sense.
[05:51] SPEAKER_02: And then the creative is the big second piece.
[05:54] SPEAKER_02: And that's why we're such advocates of influencers.
[05:58] SPEAKER_02: Because like we've seen, we've seen some stats like 99% of millennials do not trust content that comes from a brand.
[06:05] SPEAKER_02: So they just do not trust the content that's coming out of the brand's creative divisions.
[06:09] SPEAKER_02: And so that's why influencers are so effective because they create the content.
[06:13] SPEAKER_02: And they already have the established trust with their audience.
[06:17] SPEAKER_02: And they know what content resonates really well.
[06:19] SPEAKER_02: So it's all about the right content, right channels.
[06:22] SPEAKER_01: So how would you define your views that work influencers a lot?
[06:27] SPEAKER_01: And it's tossed around quite a bit.
[06:29] SPEAKER_01: How would you define an influencer?
[06:32] SPEAKER_01: Who was an influencer?
[06:35] SPEAKER_02: Influencers, there's really quite a spectrum.
[06:38] SPEAKER_02: So it can go all the way from nano, from someone who's a nano influencer, which was around a thousand followers, all the way up to,
[06:46] SPEAKER_02: and then in there you have the micro influencers, which is about 10,000 to, you know, we'd say about 300,000 followers.
[06:54] SPEAKER_02: That's a micro influencer.
[06:56] SPEAKER_02: And then from 300 and above, that's where you get into macro influencer, the celebrity influencer type status.
[07:02] SPEAKER_02: And an influencer can fall in that spectrum all the way.
[07:05] SPEAKER_02: But basically an influencer is someone who has established the trust of their audience.
[07:10] SPEAKER_02: And they have their own defined niche, whatever it might be.
[07:14] SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's fashion, sometimes it's for, sometimes it's, you know, mental health, whatever it might be.
[07:19] SPEAKER_02: And they have trust established with their audience.
[07:22] SPEAKER_02: That's really what an influencer is.
[07:24] SPEAKER_01: I want to, I'm curious about when you're talking about some of those numbers.
[07:29] SPEAKER_01: When you're mentioning a thousand, three thousand, or whatever.
[07:33] SPEAKER_01: Are you talking like total followers?
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: Are you talking just specific followers say, A, on LinkedIn, A, B, on TikTok or Instagram, for those numbers?
[07:45] SPEAKER_02: Typically it's platform specific.
[07:47] SPEAKER_02: So when I say an influencer has 50,000 followers, they typically have that on one platform.
[07:53] SPEAKER_02: You know, some influencers, they do have, they do have large followers on multiple platforms.
[07:58] SPEAKER_02: But by and large, influencers are typically really good at one platform.
[08:02] SPEAKER_02: So when I say 50,000 followers, I might mean Instagram or TikTok or whatever it might be.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, super that.
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: And the key, I just, I want to go back a little bit on the key of reaching these people.
[08:14] SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, not to, not to compartmentalize or be too general in nature.
[08:24] SPEAKER_01: But, but you know, they live in a world that is fast paced, you know, scrolling through things like crazy, right?
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, very attention deficit disorder types, you know, it's not just this age group.
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: It's society in general these days, right?
[08:43] SPEAKER_01: So how do you capture their attention?
[08:45] SPEAKER_01: Because obviously, you know, I would think you'd have to capture their attention, what, and within a couple of seconds.
[08:53] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean, I think the other thing is people will watch good content.
[08:59] SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a more general principle, you know, I don't think it really matters if they're 13 or 53.
[09:06] SPEAKER_02: People watch good content.
[09:07] SPEAKER_02: And I think we've seen that with things like Breaking Bad, for example, you know, which is a very, or even game of thrones,
[09:12] SPEAKER_02: like these longer form content pieces that are very long.
[09:16] SPEAKER_02: It's like Breaking Bad is like one big, long movie.
[09:20] SPEAKER_02: And people are very engaged throughout the whole thing.
[09:23] SPEAKER_02: So I don't necessarily think that, you know, like people have this attention deficit thing.
[09:30] SPEAKER_02: I think people will watch good content if it's worth it.
[09:33] SPEAKER_02: Same with podcasts, you know, Joe Rogan's podcast sometimes get into the three and a half hours and tons of kids listen to that.
[09:38] SPEAKER_02: So I think it depends on the good content.
[09:41] SPEAKER_02: But on the platforms like TikTok, for example, which is, which is the new powerhouse with with Gen Z's and the demographic we've been talking about.
[09:51] SPEAKER_02: It's certainly within a matter of seconds, you have to capture attention.
[09:55] SPEAKER_02: What else are you going to get a quick scroll? Absolutely.
[09:58] SPEAKER_01: So, so when you're talking about, you know, there's a phrase like, you know, in marketing, right, to talk about content is king, right?
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: But it's really video content to really that that is king, right?
[10:12] SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, the internet broke out there for a second.
[10:15] SPEAKER_02: But yes, it is absolutely video content is the one that resonates the most with Gen Z and youth today.
[10:23] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
[10:24] SPEAKER_02: And we, we advise our clients pretty strongly that you have to be investing a video.
[10:29] SPEAKER_02: Because from the stats we've seen the other, the other more text heavy platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit.
[10:35] SPEAKER_02: They just do not have the youth audience on it today.
[10:39] SPEAKER_02: All the platforms that have the youth audience like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, it's all video.
[10:45] SPEAKER_02: So absolutely video is key to resonate with youth audience.
[10:49] SPEAKER_02: What about YouTube?
[10:50] SPEAKER_02: Having a YouTube stop?
[10:52] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, YouTube, absolutely as well. YouTube for sure is the big four platforms with youth are TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube.
[11:00] SPEAKER_02: Those are really the big four. And then what are worth investing all the time into?
[11:05] SPEAKER_00: To connect a center for entrepreneurship and innovation and let bridge has been spring-blading entrepreneurs to success for 10 years and counting.
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[11:38] SPEAKER_01: But it's got to be hard though, right? For as you mentioned, right?
[11:43] SPEAKER_01: Some of these say higher education institutions, right?
[11:47] SPEAKER_01: They're not run by 2025 or old people, right? They're run by middle-aged people for the most part.
[11:55] SPEAKER_01: So it's hard for maybe them to get their head around this whole concept of what they should be doing.
[12:03] SPEAKER_01: And I come from the newspaper background. Newspapers were like that for ages, right?
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: They didn't adapt. And many still have been adapted to the digital age and what's happening out there in social media, etc.
[12:18] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there is a lot of institutional inertia.
[12:20] SPEAKER_02: And I mean, that's also why I have a job. It's because we are much faster to adapt and to figure out these new platforms and new technologies and new methods of marketing much more than higher education.
[12:33] SPEAKER_02: And I mean, higher education, they're in a tough spot because they're trying to be a marketing agency within this academic institution.
[12:43] SPEAKER_02: And they have pressures coming from all different sides, with being the executive office and trying to push their new vision about being a research institution or whatever it might be.
[12:53] SPEAKER_02: And then they have the recruitment office also trying to push them.
[12:57] SPEAKER_02: So they're really trying to piece all these different stakeholders. And they've got a tough job.
[13:01] SPEAKER_02: And then they also have to keep up to date with what students want. There's more and more pressures on universities to be creating their students' job ready.
[13:10] SPEAKER_02: So it's just that they have a really difficult job. And that's why we love working with higher ed because they go important in society and yet they have a very difficult job to do.
[13:21] SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious, where did the name come from, Glacier?
[13:25] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we used to joke that there used to be three co-founders of Glacier and we lost one on the mountain expedition trip. But that's not true.
[13:33] SPEAKER_02: I'm not joking. I'm joking.
[13:35] SPEAKER_02: No, it was just, I mean, I've been born and raised in Calgary. And I love this city. I love the mountains. I love the Alberta values and everything it stands for.
[13:46] SPEAKER_02: And so Glacier was really just a homage to the territory of the region. I love the mountains. I go skiing and mountain biking all the time. And it's just kind of my place to go and unwind.
[13:57] SPEAKER_02: So Glacier is really just a homage to the mountains in Alberta.
[14:01] SPEAKER_02: What did you take at university, by the way?
[14:04] SPEAKER_02: I did. I like to call my first couple of years an academic adventure. And I did a biological science and then history of biology and whatever I just dip my toe into every faculty.
[14:16] SPEAKER_02: And then I ended up doing a bachelor of commerce degrees specializing in operations management. It took me, it took me about six years, but it was well worth the weight.
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what tell me about being an entrepreneur. What do you like about it?
[14:32] SPEAKER_02: I love, I love the process of creation of, of coming up with an idea and then seeing it come to fruition and, and being able to solve someone's problem is just a rush.
[14:44] SPEAKER_02: And, and I view entrepreneurship as, as one of the highest forms of art because you, you know, the world is basically your canvas and, and you, and you get to create this, this beautiful creation that, you know, it involves all the elements of design and everything like that and the branding and everything like that.
[15:05] SPEAKER_02: And then it also involves humans, which, and it's just this big beautiful moving art installation that solves a problem for the world.
[15:13] SPEAKER_02: So I just see it as something that is just so fun to do. And then, I mean, I also just love the freedom that comes along with it. I mean, you could argue that that was a big reason why I started the company was because freedom was one of my core values.
[15:25] SPEAKER_02: And that's always meant a lot to me. And I just love the freedom that comes along with it. I love, I love being able to see the people on my team grow and develop into their, into their, their best possible selves.
[15:37] SPEAKER_02: And I love the work that we do at Glacier. So it's just everything about entrepreneurship. I think it's just an absolute blast. And I'm just very grateful that I stumbled into it early in life.
[15:47] SPEAKER_02: Now, it must be some stuff you don't like about it.
[15:53] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think there's certainly, there's certainly more difficult days than others, especially during COVID. There was a lot of, a lot of long walks with my, my fiance who has, she's my, she's my rock. And I'm so grateful for her.
[16:06] SPEAKER_02: But there was a lot of long walks and a lot of great, difficult discussions during COVID. But I like to think back to the, the, the stoic principle of amor fatie, which is love fate.
[16:18] SPEAKER_02: And, and not just accept fate or whatever should happen, but actually love it because it's a, it's a great test and a great talent, a great challenge.
[16:26] SPEAKER_02: And, and like when we went into the pandemic first, like Glacier, I told the team, I said, you know, it's, it's kind of like what Churchill said when, when they were going into the second world war, this is going to be our finest hour because it's going to be very difficult.
[16:42] SPEAKER_02: It's going to be super hard. We're going to have to work harder than we've ever had to with fewer resources than we've ever had to to get through this thing.
[16:49] SPEAKER_02: And I mean, now we're in a really good situation. Our company, we're in a better place than we were before the pandemic. So, yeah.
[16:59] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, there is difficult days for sure, but it's kind of like, I get excited about it because it's going to make us more strong. And so I generally look, look up on the challenge with, with great excitement.
[17:10] SPEAKER_01: Now, we all know that, you know, being an entrepreneur is basically a 24 or seven job. Do you have any time for other interests?
[17:20] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely. Yeah, like I said, one of my core values is freedom. And I do, I do love having life outside the office. And I mean, when I, when I am not at the office, I'm generally thinking about the company all the time for sure.
[17:34] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I have lots of lots of hobbies like I love skiing, I love mountain biking. I got into an ant farming recently, actually. I've always said, yeah, but I've always had a love of ants. And I've always meant to start an ant colony. I just love ants.
[17:49] SPEAKER_02: And my fiance bought me a starter ant colony kit for Christmas. So I've been getting into that recently.
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: What do you think that cash in our interest came from?
[18:02] SPEAKER_02: I remember when I, I mean, I did buy a, I did a year biology in, in university and just learning about ton of organisms and things like that. But I remember learning about ants and just how they're just this one, they're like one organism yet also many.
[18:19] SPEAKER_02: And they somehow organize themselves and you know, if there's a flood that happens, the ants will just naturally form a raft and the worker ansel for going to the bottom and then they'll throw the larvae on top of it and the queen.
[18:34] SPEAKER_02: And the ones on the bottom will knowingly drown and though the raft will just float until safety and then we'll just rebuild again.
[18:40] SPEAKER_02: So, and they do this all without, you know, central organization. It's unbelievable. And the more, the more I learn about ants, the more I just get absolutely fascinated by them. So I don't know where I came from, but I'm the other way around.
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: I'm usually trying to get rid of them.
[18:56] SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah. Don't tell my landlord that I at the office that I have a whole bunch of wood ants.
[19:02] SPEAKER_02: I'm going to call it out here. Don't tell them that.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super. Then. So you grew up in Morgan race and Calgary, Matt.
[19:11] SPEAKER_02: That's correct. Yes.
[19:13] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Obviously as a business owner and an entrepreneur, what are the good things about being in Calgary?
[19:23] SPEAKER_02: I love Calgary. I think I think it's, it's just got such a can do attitude, such an entrepreneurial spirit. I have friends that come here from Ontario, they've moved here.
[19:34] SPEAKER_02: And they tell me that they're blown away at how everyone is either.
[19:39] SPEAKER_02: It seems like everybody has their own side hustle or entrepreneurial ambitions or whatever it might be. I think I think that type of entrepreneur entrepreneurial attitude is just really ingrained in the city.
[19:49] SPEAKER_02: And I think I also think that Calgaryans are very resilient. And I think a big part of it is the inclement and really cold weather in the winter.
[19:59] SPEAKER_02: I mean life, life is hard enough. And then he's gone, you've got to go outside when it's minus 35 and just, you know, deal with the other challenges that the fall you just because of that cold weather, whether it be frozen pipes, your cards and start or whatever.
[20:13] SPEAKER_02: I think it just makes Calgaryans tough. So I love that element. And then I also just like I said, I love the mountains, the mountains are such a big part of my heart.
[20:21] SPEAKER_02: And so just being able to drive to the mountains and jump on my mountain bike and have world class mountain biking within a 45 minute drive, I think it's just remarkable.
[20:31] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super. Thanks for joining us today, Matt.
[20:35] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely. Happy to be here.
[20:36] SPEAKER_01: All right, that was Matt Ditteljan, who is CEO of Glacier, a Calgary based marketing and advertising company.
[20:44] SPEAKER_01: This has been Calgary's podcast with Mario Tonoguzzi on Canada's podcast network. Thanks for joining us today.
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[21:16] SPEAKER_00: Go to chooselethbridge.ca slash entrepreneur and we'll help you moving, growing less bridge.