Miguel de la Roca and Hugo Rodríguez have built Positive Agency over 17 years into a proving ground for a simple claim: Latin American creative and marketing teams can match the quality standards of agencies anywhere in the world while operating more efficiently than traditional models.
The co-founders have managed campaigns for global brands including Canon, Volvo Trucks, and Sodimac across Latin America, the United States, and Europe. Their work includes coordinating Canon’s social media presence across seven countries simultaneously, managing over $10 million in digital media investment across their client portfolio, and operating with distributed teams that deliver enterprise-quality execution at nearshore economics.
Demonstrating Capability at Enterprise Scale
The Canon relationship provides clear evidence of execution capability. Positive Agency manages social media strategy and content production across Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Panama, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador on platforms including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. This requires maintaining brand consistency across different markets while adapting creative assets to local consumer behaviors and platform preferences.
“Global brands evaluate agencies on the same standards regardless of where they’re located,” de la Roca said. “Canon could work with any agency in the world. They continue working with us because we deliver results that meet their global benchmarks while coordinating complexity that would challenge agencies anywhere.”
The work involves simultaneous campaign launches, unified reporting frameworks, and consistent creative quality across markets with different languages, currencies, and regulatory requirements. For U.S. companies evaluating Latin American partners, this type of multi-country coordination demonstrates operational maturity beyond single-market execution.
The Economics of Distributed Senior Talent
One of the most compelling arguments for working with Latin American agencies centers on talent economics. Marketing professionals in Latin America typically earn 40 to 65 percent less than their U.S. counterparts for comparable roles and experience levels, creating opportunities for companies to access more senior talent within existing budget parameters.
Rodríguez said this differential changes how teams can be structured. “A U.S. company paying $140,000 for a senior marketing strategist in San Francisco could access someone with similar experience in Latin America for $70,000 to $80,000. That gap allows them to staff more experienced people directly on client work instead of junior team members supervised from a distance.”
The founders emphasize that cost advantage only matters if quality remains consistent. Positive Agency operates with senior-led teams where strategists, creative directors, and performance specialists with 10 to 15 years of experience work directly on client accounts rather than managing junior executors.
This staffing approach also reduces the overhead burden that traditional agencies carry. With lean operational structures and distributed teams across Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, the agency avoids the office space costs, administrative layers, and geographic concentration expenses that drive up pricing at conventional firms.
Time Zone Alignment Enables Real-Time Collaboration
Beyond cost economics, time zone proximity between Latin America and the United States creates practical collaboration advantages that reduce friction in day-to-day work. Most Latin American business centers operate within zero to three hours of U.S. time zones, supporting same-day communication cycles that would be impossible with Asian or European partners.
“When a marketing director in New York has a question at 10 a.m., we can answer it in the same working day, iterate on creative, and get approvals moving without overnight delays,” de la Roca said. “That responsiveness becomes especially valuable when campaigns need rapid adjustments or when weekly launch schedules require tight coordination.”
This time zone overlap extends to scheduled meetings, performance reviews, and crisis management situations where immediate response matters more than delayed excellence. For companies running agile marketing operations with weekly or bi-weekly sprint cycles, the ability to collaborate in real time affects execution velocity.
Cultural Proximity and Market Understanding
The founders also point to cultural similarities across the Americas as a practical advantage for campaigns that need to work across borders. Shared consumer touchpoints, similar digital platform adoption patterns, and overlapping cultural references create natural advantages for teams working on pan-American campaigns.
For U.S. companies expanding into Latin America, this cultural proximity becomes particularly valuable. Teams based in the region bring market knowledge that prevents the expensive missteps that occur when agencies approach Latin America from outside. Understanding which influencers carry authentic credibility, which platforms drive actual conversions in specific countries, and which cultural moments matter enough to build campaigns around creates tangible performance improvements.
Rodríguez noted that many U.S. companies already operate in Latin America but struggle to find reliable agency partners. “These companies know the market opportunity exists. Their challenge is finding partners who can execute consistently across multiple countries while maintaining quality standards and communicating clearly with U.S. stakeholders.”
The agency operates with English as the primary working language for international clients, supporting planning, creative development, reporting, and governance without translation barriers. This bilingual capability allows Latin American teams to serve U.S. companies directly while maintaining regional market fluency.
Operating Structure Designed for Efficiency
Positive Agency maintains legal entities in both Peru and Florida, enabling the firm to contract with U.S. corporations while leveraging Latin American talent and cost structures. This dual-location model provides clients with the comfort of working with a U.S.-based entity while accessing the efficiency benefits of regional execution.
The operational approach prioritizes lean decision-making and direct communication over traditional account management layers. Senior team members stay involved in client work rather than supervising junior staff from a distance, reducing handoffs and improving output quality.
“We built the agency to eliminate friction between strategy and execution,” Rodríguez said. “When the same people developing strategy are also overseeing creative production and performance optimization, the work stays tighter and decisions happen faster.”
This structure has proven effective for mid-sized and large organizations that need sophisticated marketing execution without the bureaucracy that comes with large agency partnerships. The model works particularly well for technology companies, e-commerce platforms, and innovation-driven brands that prioritize speed and measurable outcomes over agency prestige.
Proving the Model Through Sustained Performance
After 17 years of building Positive Agency across three continents, de la Roca and Rodríguez have demonstrated that Latin American agencies can compete at the highest levels when they build proper systems, attract senior talent, and maintain performance accountability. Their track record managing campaigns for global corporations proves that geography does not determine capability when teams are structured correctly.
“We’re showing that world-class marketing execution can come from anywhere when you combine the right talent with the right processes and the right client relationships,” de la Roca said. “For companies willing to evaluate partners on actual performance rather than assumptions about location, that opens up significant opportunities for better cost-to-value outcomes.”
The agency’s continued growth and multi-year client relationships suggest that international brands are increasingly willing to look beyond traditional agency hubs when seeking marketing partners. For Latin American agencies, this creates both opportunity and responsibility to deliver at the standards that global companies require.