TPG Mobile taps JOLT Digital for digital duties

TPG Mobile has appointed JOLT Digital to handle digital media planning and buying for a year, after six months of courting. The account will be led by strategy and planning director Jonathan Ng, who joined the agency last year, and work for the youth campaign and senior plan campaigns have gone live.

Founder and CEO Sebastien Lepez (pictured below) told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that the team proposed an approach based on JOLT's mission, which is to bridge the gap between traditional media agencies and emerging technology. "This is a strategy we believe can help TPG stay ahead of the game to increase ROI and grow its business," he added.

He explained that the agency was selected because of its mission - To keep changing the game - which resonated well with TPG. "We want to help TPG grow its business and stand out from the crowd of telcos with their offerings and the quality they provide. We are not here to deliver traffic to a brand's website. Instead, we want to impact the business and we do understand what this means as we were previously clients ourselves," Lepez added.

TPG joins JOLT's list of clients which include Lazada, Razer, Wine Connection, Chubb, RB, MetLife, and COTY. Meanwhile, Ng joined the team last year from mapping and telematics company NavInfo Datatech where he was CEO for close to two years, according to his LinkedIn. During his time there, he managed business strategy, go-to-market product development, and P&L management. Prior to that, he was media and connections lead for Asia Pacific at Johnson & Johnson for more than two years, during which he designed and implemented media and ad strategies with its agency and platform partners. Ng also has experience on the agency side, having worked at Mindshare, OMD, and Starcom, leading the GSK, J&J, and P&G teams at regional levels.

According to Lepez, the team grew from three to seven in 2020 and it recently added two additional headcounts to support campaign execution. He plans to double the headcount in 2021. "We will need talents in client servicing and who understand digital and tech very well. We have people who can build the strategy and execute campaigns but it is also essential that those teams are supported by people who talk everyday to clients and understand them inside out," Lepez said.

Last year, the agency underwent a brand refresh, working with branding consultancy KOUSAH&CO over a period of six weeks to build a stronger brand presentation that is more reflective of its proposition and values. When asked what the focus areas were for JOLT this year, Lepez said it will release its proprietary technology next month which is said to "game-change media planning", and is also eyeing new markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. "These three markets are massive in terms of ad spends and have lots of local clients that are asking for a game-changing approach," Lepez said.

Although the agency was impacted hard by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, it remained resilient and eyed opportunities with existing clients. Lepez explained that this paid off as it managed to multiply its revenues for 2020 by close to four times. Additionally, working from home was also a big shift for the agency. "We realised that you don't need to be sitting in Taipei or Bangkok to execute campaigns in Taiwan or Thailand, everything can be done remotely from Singapore and can achieve results," he said. This is especially true for regional clients, whereas for local clients, Lepez said it is still crucial to have a local presence.

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