Special anniversary article · September 2026
15+ years of Alterno: a story of ideas, change and transformation
2009
,
2027
In 2009, the digital world looked very different. Facebook was just starting to matter to brands, Instagram did not yet exist, and in Puerto Rico many businesses were just discovering what it meant to have a digital strategy.
Amid that shift, Alterno Media was born, a small agency with a clear idea for its time: there was another way to connect brands with people. More than 15 years later, almost everything has changed: platforms, technology, audiences, clients, and even the agency itself. But that drive to find a different way of doing things remains.
2009–2015
AN ALTERNATIVE.
Alterno began in 2009 under the leadership of R. Luquis, with a blend of human behavior, advertising and technology that shaped the agency’s thinking. Its first projects were tied to the emerging ecosystem around Google, Facebook, Twitter, websites, blogs and digital advertising. Back then, it was still necessary to explain why a website mattered or why investing part of a budget in digital media could be a smart decision.
Alterno found its place there, starting with its first office in Hato Rey: small, beautiful, and welcoming to those who were part of those early years. Between 2009 and 2014, that space filled with meetings, proposals, ideas, and the optimism of a venture with everything still to build.
2012–2013
GROWING BEHIND THE IDEAS.
Growth came one project at a time. At that stage, Alterno worked primarily as a digital partner for advertising agencies in Puerto Rico and beyond the island. It did not yet have a substantial roster of direct clients: more than 20 agencies trusted Alterno to work behind the scenes and contribute, through them, to projects for dozens of brands, developing campaigns, websites, interactive media, strategy and technology.
It was a time of learning by doing. Every project brought a new platform or a problem with no established solution: it took research, experimentation, mistakes, and another try. That ability to figure things out became part of the agency's culture, almost without anyone planning it.
The team grew, too. Young professionals joined Alterno fresh out of college or early in their careers in copywriting, account management, design, programming, art direction, and digital media. Many continued to grow in the industry, and some now lead teams and brands.
That is also part of Alterno's story: employees, freelancers, photographers, producers, creatives, and professionals across disciplines, in Puerto Rico and beyond. The team has never stayed exactly the same. The ability to bring talent together around an idea has.
2014
A DIFFERENT AGENCY.
By 2014, digital was no longer an add-on. Clients needed strategy, content, creative, social media, websites, media, and technology working together more closely than ever. Alterno had to change, too.
That year, a new chapter began on Calle Loíza in Santurce, Alterno's home for more than a decade. The space welcomed clients, collaborators, celebrations, and hundreds of projects.
Calle Loíza also transformed over the years, but in 2014 it was all just beginning. Alterno expanded its offering and became more than an option for executing digital projects: it began integrating strategy, creative, design, content, media, and technology.
That year also marked the start of one of the agency's longest relationships: Aba Depilación Láser was part of Alterno's journey for nearly 12 years, starting in 2014.
EVOLUTION
A BRAND HAS TO CHANGE TOO.
Building an agency over so many years means discovering that the advice you give clients eventually applies to you, too. Brands need to evolve, and Alterno would be no exception.
Growth also transformed the founder's role: moving from doing good work to building teams, delegating, navigating difficult moments, acknowledging mistakes, and surrounding himself with people with different expertise and perspectives.
The new visual identity reflected that chapter: the red square and a simpler, more direct, more recognizable look would stay with the agency for the next several years. It would not be the last change.
2016–2017
WHEN PLANS CHANGE.
By 2017, Alterno was refreshing its digital presence again. The new website signaled growth and the plans ahead. In August of that year, one of those moments occurred that takes on unexpected meaning in hindsight.
On August 21, 2017, during the solar eclipse, Puerto Rico paused for a few minutes to look up at the sky. That same day, the team held an important meeting to define the agency’s future. There were plans, ideas and a clear direction. Weeks later, almost none of it could matter in the same way.
21.08.2017
Plans
→
Disruption
20.09.2017
Adaptation
First came Irma. Then, María. Hurricane María crossed Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017 and transformed life on the island. Without electricity and with limited telecommunications, Alterno went into survival mode: growth was no longer the goal. The priority was to solve problems, help, and find a way to keep operating as the island began to recover.
Adapting wasn't optional. It was part of surviving.
The plans discussed during that eclipse never unfolded exactly as imagined. But one lesson remained, one that would prove necessary again just a few years later: the ability to adapt could be just as important as the ability to plan.
2018–2019
STARTING OVER.
After the hurricanes came a period of rebuilding, for the island and its businesses. Alterno continued to evolve, drawing on a way of working that was already part of its culture: collaborating with talent beyond a single office or location.
By 2019, that way of working had gained even more momentum. The agency refined a flexible structure that paired its core team with specialized professionals based on each project. It was not a new idea: it had already worked remotely within and outside Puerto Rico for years. What changed was how deeply that model became part of daily operations.
Without knowing it, Alterno was beginning to prepare for the most dramatic shift the modern industry would experience.
2020
EVERYTHING CHANGED.
The pandemic brought the physical world to a halt, but accelerated digital transformation. Companies that had put off eCommerce needed to sell online; educational institutions, restaurants and retailers had to reinvent how they reached their audiences. Social media, websites, video and online advertising became even more important.
For Alterno, 2020 was about much more than working from home: it changed operations, client relationships, the pace of production, the tools, and the entire industry. And since then, the changes have barely paused.
2022+
AN INDUSTRY THAT NO LONGER WAITS.
The years after the pandemic brought a pace of change unlike almost anything before: privacy rules, algorithms, platforms, eCommerce, and client expectations all shifted. Tools like Canva made capabilities that once required other resources widely accessible, while a growing field of competitors redefined what was expected of an agency.
At the same time, global and local economic shifts affected budgets and business decisions in Puerto Rico. Those years demanded a review of processes and a fresh look at which services delivered value. The agency changed. Much of the team changed. And the structure became leaner.
But then came an even greater transformation: Artificial Intelligence. What began as a technological curiosity quickly started shaping creative, copywriting, audiovisual production, programming, search, analysis, automation, and advertising. For an agency that has adapted to every stage of the digital world since 2009, AI could not be watched from the sidelines.
Alterno has begun integrating AI/IA more actively into its processes, services, and experimentation. The goal is not to use it because it is trendy, but to understand where it can improve work, speed up processes, and deliver better solutions for clients.
AI is a tool. Not a strategy.
Technology changes the tools, but it does not eliminate the need to think. The approach remains the same: understand the problem first and adopt what truly adds value. Learning and evolving alongside the world of digital advertising has been part of the agency from the start.
15+
OVER 15 YEARS IS NOT A STRAIGHT LINE.
No company that has survived more than 15 years has a story of uninterrupted growth. Neither does Alterno. There were extraordinary years and difficult ones; clients who came and clients who left; massive projects and smaller ones that taught big lessons.
Today's agency is not the same size it once was: the core team is smaller now, and saying so is part of telling the story honestly. The goal is no longer to build the biggest agency, but one that can adapt, stay relevant, and serve its clients better.
JOURNEY
OVER 100 BRANDS. OVER 1,000 PROJECTS AND CAMPAIGNS.
Through all those changes, one thing has remained: clients' trust. Alterno has worked with more than 100 brands and contributed to more than 1,000 campaigns and projects, spanning education and food to beauty, automotive, associations, and services.
Client relationships also evolved in stages. Between 2009 and 2015, work came primarily through more than 20 agencies that brought Alterno on as a digital partner. Between 2013 and 2020 the direct client portfolio grew, and some of those brands still work with the agency.
Since 2020, Alterno has chosen to work with fewer clients to offer comprehensive digital service from start to finish. Today, relationships spanning more than a decade remain, including with Universidad Politécnica de Puerto Rico. The collaboration with Aba Depilación Láser is approaching 12 years, dating back to 2014.
Along the way, there have been brands like Tic Tac, Nutella, Ferrero, Hecho en Puerto Rico, and many others. Some relationships lasted one project; others continued for years.
The story keeps adding names. In 2025, a new chapter of collaboration with Goya de Puerto Rico began around Goya Respalda lo Bueno, and more recently GenCoat joined as one of the agency's newest clients.
Each client holds a different place in the story. Behind every logo are people who chose to trust. That may be one of the greatest privileges of reaching more than 15 years.
SPACE
FROM HATO REY TO CALLE LOÍZA. FROM CALLE LOÍZA TO ANYWHERE.
Alterno's physical history also tells the story of how work changed. From 2009 to 2014, the first home in Hato Rey. In 2014, the move to Calle Loíza, which became the agency's home for more than ten years.
Over time, the area changed, and so did the way of working. After more than a decade, keeping an office at the center of operations no longer reflected how Alterno worked. In 2025 that chapter closed, and the agency shifted to a 100% remote, flexible, online model. Not as a temporary solution, but as a decision about the future.
The office stopped being a place. The agency didn't.
2024–2025
FIFTEEN YEARS AND ANOTHER TRANSFORMATION.
Turning 15 invited a look back, but also demanded a look ahead. The celebration coincided with another internal transformation and the need to clearly express what Alterno could offer after so many years of experience.
That process gave the agency a new expression: Transform your brand with Alterno. More than an anniversary campaign, the phrase captured what the agency had been doing since 2009: transforming strategies, campaigns, websites, and digital experiences, while learning to transform itself.
TRANSFORM YOUR BRAND WITH ALTERNO.
PERSPECTIVE
ONE OF THE BEST DIGITAL AGENCIES IN PUERTO RICO?
After more than 15 years, it is natural to ask where Alterno stands in Puerto Rico's digital advertising industry. The agency has grown in a market full of talent and built long-term relationships with clients who have trusted its work time and again.
Rather than claim titles, Alterno prefers to let its track record, projects, relationships and results speak for themselves. The goal is clear: remain among the agencies brands consider when they need experience, strategy, creativity, technology and the ability to execute.
That reputation is built project by project, learning from mistakes and evolving with the industry. Today, anyone looking for a digital advertising agency in Puerto Rico finds a market radically different from 2009, and that demands more than execution: it demands thinking and connecting disciplines.
Technology handles tasks in minutes that once took days, but it cannot replace the judgment to know where it can truly create value for each brand. That judgment, developed over 15 years, is what Alterno brings to the table.
PRESENT
SEPTEMBER 2026. A NEW WEBSITE. AGAIN.
In September 2026, that evolution takes a new, visible form: Alterno launches a completely revamped and optimized website. It is not simply another redesign: it represents an agency reexamining how it presents itself and where it wants to go.
The agency is leaner today than it has been in the past. The traditional structure has given way to a flexible model that combines a core team of professionals with specialized collaborators, building teams around each project's actual needs.
In this new chapter, Alterno brings together strategy, creative, content, social media, digital advertising, media, web development, eCommerce, retargeting, email marketing, automation, artificial intelligence, audiovisual production, data, analytics and consulting. AI plays an increasingly important role, both as a service and within the agency’s own processes.
After so many years, the goal is not to return to the agency of 2016 or 2019. Those versions worked for those moments. The 2026 version has to work for what comes next.
FUTURE
WHAT DOESN’T EXIST YET.
In 2009, it would have been hard to imagine the tools we use on a typical workday today. That makes it hard to predict what advertising will look like in another 15 years. Artificial Intelligence will continue to transform creativity, production, search and media; some tasks will disappear, and capabilities we have yet to name will emerge.
Alterno's response is not to resist change: it is to study it, test it and integrate it when it adds value, knowing where judgment, experience, creativity and human understanding remain essential.
That has been the pattern since 2009. Google changed, social media changed, mobile changed, the pandemic changed. Now AI is shifting the landscape again. Alterno will keep changing, because staying ahead is not about chasing every trend, but recognizing which ones can truly help clients.
THANK YOU
THANK YOU FOR OVER 15 YEARS.
None of these chapters would have happened without the people: the clients who trusted Alterno when it was a new agency; the agencies that found a digital partner in the team; the employees who started their careers here; and every designer, programmer, copywriter, producer, photographer and collaborator who contributed and continues to contribute their talent.
Those who were here for a chapter and then took a different path are part of it too. Everyone left something behind. The agency may change its office, structure, website and working model; its history holds all those versions.
15+ YEARS. AND WE KEEP EVOLVING.
From an office in Hato Rey to more than a decade on Calle Loíza. From Alterno Media to Alterno Agency. From Google AdWords and the early years of Facebook to AI, automation and new digital experiences. From plans abandoned because of hurricanes to a pandemic that changed everything again.
Alterno has changed. A lot. That is probably why WE ARE STILL HERE: after more than 15 years, transformation stopped happening every so often and became part of the agency.
2026 marks another beginning: a new look, a new website launched in September, new technologies, more active integration of artificial intelligence and a focus on what comes next. You do not need all the answers; you need to be willing to learn and change.
The next chapter is already beginning. 2027 is just around the corner.
2027
NEW YEAR.
AGENCIA NUEVA.+
Alterno Agency
San Juan, Puerto Rico
September 2026
