Ad Age is marking Hispanic Heritage Month 2024 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package, in which members of the Hispanic community revisit pivotal projects or turning points in their careers. (Read the introduction and all the essays here.) Today, guest editor Daisy Expósito-Ulla, founder and CEO of D Expósito & Partners, writes about the dazzling emergence of a group that’s transforming American society irreversibly.

I must be one of the few people still active in the ad world who worked as a young executive in the nascent U.S. Hispanic market of the ’80s. Maybe not in its initial gestational period, but in the stage during which it flourished. I’ve seen this segment go from a minor blip on brand radars to America’s unstoppable growth engine. 

Some industry observers are way too kind when they include me among the people who transformed the way advertising and marketing are practiced in our country. Even at a time when Latinos were merely a niche market, the opportunities and challenges offered by this new economic and cultural dynamic were plain to see. Still, like many of my colleagues, I’m dazzled by today’s statistics. Watching the Latino contribution to our GDP surge past $3.6 trillion feels a bit surreal.

As we celebrate another Hispanic Heritage Month, I look back to my 25 years at a global agency, gradually building a Hispanic marketing practice, working with some of the most powerful American brands and making Hispanic consumers part of a differentiated yet integrated program.

While we now see a degree of language neutrality to reach Hispanics, most of the work back then was done in Spanish. Thanks to the hard work of many, an industry was born. With it came a blossoming of Spanish-language media—both national and local—which remains crucial to the success of marketing efforts when we realize the importance of cultural identity and emotional connection.

Our industry grew. The U.S. Census Bureau did its part in empirically confirming the obvious. In 2000 and 2010, I was part of the ethnically specialized communications efforts that made these decennial surveys historic milestones. As news of the numbers broke, American magazine covers let everyone know of the “Latino explosion,” and creatives from Latin America and Spain were lured to America to work for the ad agencies that served our market. After all, who can resist the opportunity to join what’s hot?

Twenty years ago, I decided to venture on my own. The line of demarcation that separated Hispanics from mainstream America had become blurred. This time, I would look at the Latino consumer through a different lens. We were no longer a niche segment; now, we belonged! We were—we are—influencing, impacting and altering the so-called mainstream. America was reshaping itself. 

The fulfillment of the Census projections was suddenly visible to anyone who cared to look. Here was a segment of the population—62 million strong and richly diverse—transforming society irreversibly.  My long journey had taken me to an unforeseen destiny. Not that we hadn’t wished it, even in the face of countless doubters, but it still felt like a dream. I had arrived at a new America. 

Persuaded by this new reality, in 2006 we embraced and trademarked a concept as our company moniker—The New American Agency™. As this lofty descriptor sets into action, my lens becomes wider in scope. It sees opportunity beyond Hispanics, in ethnic segments that are becoming more porous, in consumption that’s turning more mutable. I see a vibrant collective spirit of cultural curiosity, a new American thirst for fusion and ethnic interactions. My lens zooms in on cross-cultural exchanges that prompt savvy brands to react with openness and with the right expertise if they don’t want to leave money on the table. 

How else could I explain the successful crossover story of Tajín, the chile-based seasoning whose popular embrace by American consumers amounts to a “tajinization” of America? What else might this tell us? Perhaps that in a constantly changing America, brands need to apply a new lens in order to grasp this growing consumption plurality, with the expert cultural dexterity it requires.  

During this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, I reflect on the past, take a quick account of the present, and try to look toward the future. Even if investment still falls short of what the metrics call for—and there is still room for the messaging from some brands to benefit from more cultural authenticity and emotional resonance—I remain optimistic about the Hispanic market and its inexorable power. It’s exciting to continue transforming our industry and being part of this new chapter, exciting to see that almost no RFP nowadays comes without a multicultural component. It’s exciting for the positive impact we’ve had on society. Every 30 seconds, a Latino turns 18. Can you believe it?

Want more proof of my optimism? Our company has just moved to Madison Avenue, where it all started, and where it all begins again.