About
The creative agency behind the audience.
It started as a food blog and a video page. Today it's the island's largest owned audience — and the full-service creative agency built around it.
Our Story
From two pages to the whole island.
A food blog, a video page, and a hunch about where Guam was really watching. Here's how that became the island's largest owned-media network — and the agency built around it.
- 2018
Two pages and a bet.
Before the agency, before the network, there were two Instagram pages — Guam Food Blog and Guam Videos — and a hunch that the island's real audience had already moved online and nobody was serving it well. No office. No clients. No playbook. Just relentless posting and a sharp instinct for what Guam actually wanted to watch. Both pages are still anchor properties of the network today.
Guam Food Blog + Guam Videos - 2020
The year the island needed answers.
When the pandemic hit, Guam went looking for information that was fast, local, and trustworthy. Guam News launched straight into that moment and became a digital-first newsroom reaching the island every single day. The same year, the team was trusted to run Guam's federal 2020 Census outreach — community communications at federal scale, planned and executed on island.
Guam News · 2020 Census outreach - 2021–2022
One audience became a network.
One page became seven. Food, news, travel, viral culture, long-form features — each platform built for a different slice of the island, and together reaching 350,000+ followers with millions of views every month. What started as a hunch was now infrastructure: the largest owned-media audience on Guam, and a distribution engine nobody else could match.
7 platforms · 350,000+ followers - 2023
Thrive becomes a company.
The audience was real. The next move was a company that could do something with it. Co-founders David Macapinlac and Tre Blas brought the pieces together as Thrive Media Group — a production crew, a creative studio, and a sales team — turning a collection of pages into a full-service agency with the audience already built in.
Co-founded by David Macapinlac & Tre Blas - 2024–2025
The big screen, and the whole island.
Regal named Thrive its exclusive cinema-advertising sales agent on Guam — the only way onto the island's biggest screen. Lip Dub Guam grew into an island-wide high school competition (14 schools, $11,000 in prizes, 32M+ impressions across editions). And Guam News crossed 37.1 million video views in a single year.
Regal · Lip Dub Guam · 37.1M views - 2026
Full-service. Full island.
Today Thrive is strategy, a full production crew, website and AI capability, and the island's largest owned-media network — working across Guam's commercial, public, and civic sectors. Guam News Network's full website launches on BLOX Digital NXT. The bet from 2018 held: build the audience first, and everything else follows.
A full-service creative agency
Everything under one roof.
Most of the work other agencies hand off, we keep — concept, production, distribution, web, and the data behind it. With the added tech depth of MacTech Guam, you get one team, one timeline, and one partner accountable for the result.
The Team
The people behind the work.
The people leading strategy, production, creative, and content.
Leadership
David Macapinlac
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Co-founded Thrive and leads its strategy, partnerships, and growth across the agency and the network.
Tre Blas
Co-Founder & Creative Director
Leads creative direction across the agency's productions and brand work.
Francis Valencia
Director of Sales & Marketing
Leads sales and marketing partnerships, connecting Guam's brands to the network.
Work with the team.
Tell us what you're trying to grow.