Sosa a legend in Hispanic marketing

Lionel Sosa grew up dreaming big.

At one point, he aspired to be another Pablo Picasso. He had the image of Picasso entertaining groups of friends for lavish restaurant meals and paying for them simply by drawing a sketch on a napkin and giving it to the restaurant owner.

“Here, you have a Picasso now,” Sosa imagined Picasso saying.

Another time, Sosa wanted to be a top artist for Walt Disney, to be the right-hand man of Disney himself.

Sosa knew he could draw. He was the class artist for the Sydney Lanier High School class that graduated in 1957.

Neither the Picasso nor the Disney dream came true. But sometimes success arrives just by dreaming big, even if it happens in another way.

For Sosa, success materialized as he became the biggest name nationally in the Hispanic advertising world, reaching his pinnacle in the 1990s with his company receiving annual billings of about $130 million a year. His influence in San Antonio and the rest of the nation remains strong.

Born on May 27, 1939, Sosa lived first in San Antonio’s Prospect Hill area, which at the time was 90 percent Anglo.

A son of Mexican immigrants, Sosa couldn’t speak a word of English when he started school. “I couldn’t ask to go to the bathroom. I had a couple of accidents, I must say.”

Sosa’s father was from Mexico City, his mother from Monterrey. Young Sosa started working at his father’s dry cleaning shop at age 12, washing, drying and delivering clothes.

At age 14, his family moved to the Lanier High School area, an area that was, in his words, an “amazing mix” of Hispanics and Anglos.

He grew up there in the same streets, if not exactly at the same time, as future Mayor Henry Cisneros, future University of Texas at San Antonio President Ricardo Romo, future City Manager Alex Briseño and future Texas A&M University at San Antonio President Maria Ferrier.

“We all learned the art of getting along with people not exactly like yourself. We would be friends with folks we normally would not become friends with,” Sosa recalled.

In high school, he drew constantly, on the blackboards, for the yearbook and comics for the school newspaper. His father inspired him. “He told me I could be a great artist, that I had the hands of an artist,” Sosa recalled.

After high school and about the time he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, Sosa spent two months in San Clemente, California. While there, he compiled a portfolio he hoped would be the ticket to a Disney job, drawings of Disney characters and movie stars.

Sosa ran short of money while in California. After purchasing a bus ticket home, he did not have enough money for a taxi to Disney offices. He mailed the portfolio with a letter and came back to San Antonio. Eventually, the portfolio was returned by mail to him with a letter saying the Disney company already was “adequately staffed.”

Sosa then prepared to become a business sign painter, especially for windows and walls. He practiced on a wall at his father’s dry cleaning store, painting one sign, covering it and then painting another sign.

But his first real job came from businessman O.P. Schnabel, who was known for his anti-litter, beautify San Antonio campaigns. Sosa was hired to empty litter cans and repaint them and was paid $1.75 for each.

He did this for eight years. “I found myself at age 25 with four kids, earning $1.75 an hour. I was barely able to feed them,” Sosa said.

Along the way, he briefly thought he had caught a break, hired by the advertising agency known as the Pitluk Group. On his first day at Pitluk, however, he was told by a senior partner to “get out of here.” Sosa said he was told he had been hired without authorization.

He also found a job with Texas Neon Sign Co., continuing to work for Schnabel on nights and weekends, until 1967. That year, he started an art studio called Sosart that designed graphics, signs and tickets.

As HemisFair ’68 approached and started, Sosa’s services came into high demand. Church’s Chicken became a large client. Sosa designed their signs, uniforms and landscaping as the chain expanded beyond Texas.

He received work from San Antonio advertising agencies. “I became their art department. I decided I could be an advertising agency,” Sosa said.

The first Sosa ad agency was called Ed Yardang & Associates. His advertising career took off. In 1978, his advertising activities turned political when then-U.S. Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, hired Sosa’s team for his re-election campaign against Democrat Bob Krueger of New Braunfels.

Before that election, only 8 percent of Latinos voted Republican, but 37 percent voted in the Tower-Krueger election, with Tower winning the overall vote by a 0.5 percent margin.

In the early 1980s, Sosa teamed with Ernest Bromley and Al Aguilar to form a legendary and pioneering Hispanic marketing firm, called Sosa, Bromley, Aguilar & Associates.

“It was the perfect storm of talents,” Sosa said. Sosa was the creative leader. Bromley was in charge of operations and media research. Aguilar brought in new clients.

“If I have a talent, it’s recognizing a good advertisement and how do you get in the mind of consumers to motivate them,” Sosa said.

Aguilar was instrumental in landing Coca-Cola, a $28 million account and possibly the largest yet in Hispanic advertising. Aguilar previously had worked in Coca-Cola’s Hispanic advertising department in Atlanta.

“It was the world’s No. 1 brand,” Sosa said.

“That opened up everything else, and the rest of America came on board,” Aguilar recalled.

Other corporations followed. Sosa listed American Airlines, Burger King, Anheuser-Busch, Sprint and Proctor & Gamble.

“That was an amazing chemistry of talent. When we walked the hallways of corporations, we had the self-confidence we would win the business, and we would,” Aguilar recalled. “Lionel, with his charm, wit, intelligence and creativity, he set the tone. He listens well to people’s ideas. He was a terrific partner over all.”

By 1996, the firm reached its pinnacle, $130 million a year in billings and about 150 employees. Sosa “retired” from the firm that year. Sosa, Bromley, Aguilar & Associates eventually became Bromley Communications. Aguilar co-founded his current firm, Creative Civilization-An Aguilar/Girard Agency, in 1999.

The advances in Hispanic advertising by Sosa, Bromley & Aguilar soon will be enshrined in Washington’s Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Advertising materials created by the firm will enter the museum’s “American Enterprises” exhibit opening July 1. In 2016, the firm’s story will be featured in an exhibit titled “New Perspective.”

“We didn’t realize we working making history,” Aguilar remarked.

After retiring, Sosa stayed busy, however, getting asked to join numerous corporate and nonprofit boards.

His wide influence kept him in demand, including for social causes. When Mexico steelmaker Alonso Ancira wanted to create a program to promote U.S.-Mexico relations, especially for immigration, Sosa was tapped as the leader of the organization Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together, or MATT.

“It was the only organization meant to bring people in every part of the country with different viewpoints to talk together,” Sosa said.

He stayed with MATT until he joined the presidential campaign of Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain in 2008.

These days, Sosa and his wife, Kathy, operate a media consulting firm called Sosa & Sosa. But mainly, they paint together, what Sosa called returning to his first love. The couple devotes three days a week to painting at a studio in Castroville. Many of their works are portraits.

“Kathy is a talented painter,” Sosa said, “probably more than me.”

Their paintings are available for viewing at Sosa Galleries on Lavaca Street, just south of downtown.

The recipient of numerous honors and awards over the years, Sosa especially prizes being named “One of the 25 most influential Hispanics in America” by Time magazine in 2005.

Sosa will garner yet another recognition this year. He will be inducted into the American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame in New Orleans this month

dhendricks@express-news.net