The story behind the voice
Alex López Negrete started this agency in 1985 at a kitchen table with Cathy — his wife, his business partner, and the reason any of it worked. Forty years later, Lopez Negrete Communications is one of the nation’s leading independent Hispanic-owned agencies, and he still reads the briefs, still has a hand in the work, and is still in the room making sure the music is right.
Anyone who has seen him with a guitar knows why that last one is non-negotiable. He built the philosophy underneath what you heard at the Summit — Maximum Return on Cultural Intelligence — and then spent four decades building a team that can execute it without him in the room. Which is why he moderated this one instead of presenting it.
Houston born, Mexico City raised. He and Cathy have two children, both of whom work in the family business, and three grandchildren who do not yet.
Built from Culture, Not for It
In under two years, Lopez Negrete has built one of the most decorated bodies of work for the Texas Latino consumer in the grocery category for H-E-B. From the first brand campaign through Lent, Tropical Fruit, Holiday, and the World Cup, the work keeps sweeping the American Advertising Awards. This session went behind the award shelf to show how it actually gets made. Instead of one case study, the agency's leadership walked through the connected body of work and the cultural strategy behind it. The premise is simple: H-E-B isn't a store in your community; it's your community in the form of a store. The panel traced how that idea becomes campaigns that move the Texas Latino consumer.
What Attendees Took Away
The conversation moved the way the work actually gets done: from client needs and situation, to strategy, to concept and execution. That is where a culturally grounded idea gets tested and either survives or dies. Attendees heard how the team finds the cultural truth inside a category, how they avoid the sappy, stereotypical trap that plagues so much multicultural advertising, and how every campaign has to clear one non-negotiable bar: it must feel unmistakably on-brand for H-E-B. The result is work that is both culturally true and unique to the brand. Honest, unscripted, and built for anyone who wants their work to connect with the Texas Latino consumer, part of the fastest-growing segment in the country.