Former J&J Acuvue marketer Sebastien Lepez starts digital consultancy

Sebastien Lepez (pictured), former head of digital and brand equity for Acuvue APAC, at Johnson & Johnson (J&J), has started Jolt Digital, a digital consultancy which “matchmakes” brands with marketing solutions providers.Speaking to Marketing on the move, Lepez explained that Jolt Digital leverages technology companies across the entire consumer journey to help solve various brand challenges. This extends to content creation, data, content effectiveness and consumer engagement.This is to allow brands to tap on Jolt Digital’s network of selected technology companies in different areas such as AI, predictive modelling, mobile targeting. These companies, which comprise startups, are based in Asia and Europe in order to drive further performances from the digital plan.“After spending three years at J&J, I realised brands want to get further performance from their digital plan by leveraging technology. But they don’t know which technology companies to use and how to use them. This is when I had the idea to create Jolt Digital,” Lepez explained.As such, Lepez is looking to provide technology solutions to help answer brand challenges and help marketers define how to use these solutions. He also believes that for every challenge a brand has, there is a technology solution that can deliver higher performances. He also aims to reduce the risks associated with working with innovation.“Through the heavy process of sourcing the tech companies and monitoring of their performance from previous campaigns, I am trying to remove the risk that is usually associated with innovation,” Lepez said.Currently, Jolt Digital is operating in all APAC markets except for China, but has plans to expand to the market in due course. It is currently serving clients in the FMCG, electronics and entertainment space locally, regionally and globally.When asked why Singapore was chosen to launch this new company, Lepez added “Technology is more and more coming to Singapore or being created in Singapore. It is clear that Singapore is nowadays playing a key role for tech in the world. Therefore, I thought there is no better place than Singapore to launch my company.”During his time at J&J, Lepez was tasked with increasing the delivery of e-trials and creating digital foundations from measurement to optimisation. This saw him growing digital capability across markets and revamping entire APAC websites from images, message to UX.Before J&J, Lepez was the Asia head at GroupM for team GSK, where he led the agency’s GSK account across Asia. This includes managing a portfolio of multinational brands such as Panadol, Sensodyne, Physiogel, Horlicks and Scott's across four categories, his LinkedIn profile read. Prior to that, he was regional business director at PHD, where he led key International accounts such as HP, ANZ, Johnnie Walker Blue Label and Banyan Tree across APAC. He also held tenures at Starcom and Initiative.