Dimitris Kalaitzis

Dimitris Kalaitzis is Head of Marketing at instacar, where he leads the brand’s marketing strategy and growth initiatives.

With a background spanning digital marketing, performance, content and influencer marketing, he has held senior roles across both brand and agency environments.

He is also the co-host of Digital Jam, a Greek podcast focused on digital marketing and innovation, and works as a Digital Marketing Instructor, sharing practical experience with the next generation of marketers.

Presentation Title:
"We Didn't Hire a Creator. We Built One."

How instacar turned Car Boldie from a content experiment into a brand character, a creator ecosystem and a mascot at OAKA.

Most brands enter creator marketing by renting someone else's audience. instacar took the opposite route: it built its own creator from scratch. Car Boldie started as an in-house content character and evolved, step by step, into the face of the brand, a hub for an ecosystem of external creators and, eventually, a live mascot at OAKA.

Dimitris walks through that evolution: the early bets, the moments it almost didn't work, how the brand decided which creators to bring around Car Boldie and why, and what changes operationally when the "creator" is owned IP rather than a contract. A practical case on building influence you control, and on when ownership beats partnership.