“It goes beyond what’s in front of the camera,” Solis said. “You can see Diana Flores, you can see Coach Canales, but the entire ecosystem has to have representation in that community.”

Solis said there’s as much a need for diversity among production crews, writers, corporate sponsors, and agency partners as there is for the final marketing product. Messianu agreed and noted that bringing in MEL COO Carla Santiago, chief digital officer Gustavo García, and chief strategy officer Omar Quinones from Edelman—as well as executive creative director Danny Alvarez and head of client services Jennifer Rangel from GUT—created a valuable message for the NFL’s sizable platform, but kept building the network that allowed him, his MEL partners, Solis and Farfan to make speaking to Hispanic audiences as conventional as Sunday football.

“The realization was that my heart and my conviction is in the Hispanic markets,” said Messianu, who spent nearly 30 years with Alma and was DDB McDonald’s global chief creative officer. “This is something that I decided based on how I want to live my every day, how I want to lose sleep in the middle of the night and wake up charged every morning. “