Independent ad agency RPA has hired Marlon Hernandez for the role of VP, group creative director, Digital Group. Hernandez will report to EVP, chief creative officer Joe Baratelli and will manage the Digital Design group and guide digital programs for all clients.
Most recently Hernandez was creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi L.A. where he led the Platform Design team, which creates and manages Toyota’s digital presence across multiple consumer touchpoints.
“The ever-changing world of digital design continues to open new opportunities to create unique content for our clients,” said Baratelli. “Marlon, with his deep digital and design roots, Web dev, UX and UI experience, will shape compelling, cutting-edge digital experiences for all of our clients and their customers.”
Prior to Saatchi, Hernandez was at TBWAChiatDay, and Crispin Porter + Bogusky where he was digital design director. Before that, he gained experience at R/GA and ATTIK, NY. He has created interactive experiences and developed brand-identity systems and design standards for clients like Bank of America, Aetna U.S. Healthcare and the U.S. Postal Service. His brand experience extends to Pepsi, Tostitos, Adidas, Burger King, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Nike, Subaru, Verizon Wireless, and IBM.
Hernandez has been recognized by Cannes Cyber Lions, Clio Awards, One Show Interactive, Communication Arts Design Annual, Broadcast Design Association Awards, D&AD Annual and many more.
RPA’s client list includes American Honda, ampm, Apartments.com, ARCO, CoStar Group, Los Angeles Clippers, Farmers Insurance Group, Intuit Small Business, La-Z-Boy and Southwest Airlines.
Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky
Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.
The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.
The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.
Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
"They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More