Welcome to Behind the One-Way Mirror, a new blog from DLG Research — where we share stories, reflections, and cultural observations from more than 20 years of human-centered research.
This company started as a family-led market research firm, rooted in Houston. We have grown into a trusted partner for brands navigating multicultural markets, especially for brands marketing to Hispanic consumers.
What sets us apart from others is the way we listen to people.
To celebrate DLG Research’s 20th anniversary in 2025, our founders Elvia de la Garza-Morales and Edgardo de la Garza recorded a limited-series podcast, Moderating Life. They told stories from the field, reflected on over two decades of work, and opened a window to see into the human side of the market research business.
For the first edition of this new series, we are taking you back on a journey since the launch. You will see why our stories are still sparking conversation, and why we decided this blog should exist: to keep sharing our insights with the world.
Why a Podcast to Celebrate Our 20th Anniversary?
An idea that started as a joke
The initial idea for Moderating Life surfaced in casual conversation at a family gathering. Siblings Edgardo and Elvia were asked about the upcoming milestone anniversary and what it really meant to have been in business for two decades.
They realized how many stories had accumulated over the years. Not just “funny focus group moments,” where everyone had a laugh. Real experiences that shaped how they perform qualitative and quantitative work, how they approach Hispanic marketing, and how they became known for supporting clients who needed more than a standard report.
A podcast felt like the perfect way to honor the history of the business, and the meaning behind it. This was the space to say the things that usually stay behind the one-way mirror.
Showing what research really looks like
The question we’ve heard for years, “what do you actually do?” needed an answer.
For years, we’ve explained what we do by telling quick stories—often through Edgardo and Elvia’s experiences in the field. Everyone was always surprised at how interesting and high-stakes things can be in the world of multicultural market research. This got us thinking: people in marketing, strategy, creative, advertising, and B2B market research rarely get a glimpse of how insights are actually created before they make their way into a campaign.
This way, you can “sit in” on these stories along with us.
Who We Had In Mind When We Hit Record
The Next Generation of Market Researchers
We didn’t only consider our primary circle of influence; we thought of young market researchers just starting their careers. After 20 years, we see patterns in the work we do, the clients we serve, and the culture we share that we wish someone had told us about earlier.
Though both Edgardo and Elvia are active in the marketing industry through non-profit organizations, they considered how we might share our wisdom and learned experiences.
For Elvia in particular, Moderating life became a way to tell the real truth about how this business works. There is joy, hardship, travel, stress, and special moments that remind you why you keep doing it.
This opportunity to share stories of what you’re really signing up for when you choose market research as a career was the perfect way to connect with the next wave.
If you are new to market research, Episode 5, “The Art of Listening: What Makes a Great Moderator,” is a good place to start.
Clients, Partners, and the People
Edgardo had another audience in mind. Before the scripts were even written for each of the six episodes, he thought about the ones behind the desk: the decision-makers who need DLG Research to show them how to make their campaigns land with Hispanic people.
Titles in this genre range from Chief Marketing Officers, insights leaders, Vice Presidents of brands, and agency partners, but the common denominator stays true. The real audience for him was partners who compare top market research companies and want to understand how to choose the right one.
Not only capabilities, service areas, and industries; but personality, approach, and connection to the subjects.
Many collaborators and mentors are mentioned in Moderating Life, including how they influenced the business. As both managing partners told their stories, visions of the clients, creatives, and colleagues drifted across their minds.
Listeners can almost visualize who had been in those rooms. In that sense, this podcast was a thank-you-letter to all the people who had trusted them over the years.
I oftentimes speak of the diaspora that Lopez Negrete Communications now has after four decades of operation – and Edgardo is a part of it. It will be 24 years this year since I first met Edgardo De La Garza, when he joined our agency as Director of Research.
From that moment, I was taken by both his personal and professional attributes. From a personal perspective, his ever-present positivity, ebullience, and warmth make you feel like you have known him for years – and that you can trust him. And, trust him you can.
His approach to research, his level of discipline and rigor, his insatiable curiosity make him a class-A researcher. He also finds a very refreshing way of combining his personality and his expertise to make the work better for his clients.
His warm, inviting-yet-not-leading way of conducting even the toughest of focus groups gets him as close to the consumer truth as I have ever seen.
His eye for detail and diligence puts it all together for his clients to absorb, understand and apply.
And, yes, after two decades, I can say that I have enjoyed seeing him grow his research firm to the prominence and reputation it now has – and that we have become friends. I think in any book, you can call this a win/win.
Reactions That Always Stay With Us
“We made ourselves cry”
No, we don’t mean from sadness. Especially in Episode 6, “Recognitions and Thanks”, you can tell Edgardo and Elvia had tears in their eyes. This conversation is the first place we go when asked what stood out most from the Moderating Life podcast.
The script was heartfelt and emotional, but no one on set that day expected the feelings to come through the way they did. A perfect way to close the book; real love and respect between the two siblings.
It was a moment that captured everything at once:
- How much they still love the work they do, day in and day out.
- How proud they are of what DLG Research has become in the multicultural market research industry.
- What it means to build a company with family, not just a business partner.
“So human, so real”
The production team behind the creation of Moderating Life was not immune the spread of emotional insights in the room. DLG Research partnered with Speakerbox Media, B2B podcast industry leaders, to bring these stories to the airwaves.
Founders Sarah Smith and Ray Smith, along with their recording and audio crew, remember Edgardo and Elvia’s day in the studio as extraordinarily human and real. Having worked on hundreds of projects and with innumerable clients, there is no higher praise we could ask of them.
Their feedback matters all the more because authenticity was the major point of the Moderating Life podcast. The goal was never to do a glossy show to impress other agencies or compete with larger, top market research companies on production quality alone. Though, the high quality and professional touch certainly helped reach our intended audience.
DLG Research’s partners wanted to sound like themselves, and bring their favorite moments to listeners everywhere. And this we did, with help from our friends.
“I’m not crying, you’re crying”
The podcast wasn’t the only way we celebrated turning 20. DLG Research partnered with Rebecca Burley of Purple Page Marketing to redo our website, initiate a special anniversary edition of our logo, utilize our LinkedIn page, and launch our new Instagram and YouTube channels.
A long-time friend of Edgardo and Elvia, Rebecca couldn’t resist joining us in the studio to capture some behind-the-scenes moments.
As the cameras captured and the teleprompter rolled, she sat quietly in the corner, observing a side of us that she had never encountered in any marketing strategy session. It was a most in-depth glimpse beyond the veil of professionalism and poise. The invisible barrier between client and vendor had fallen away as she heard Edgardo recount his teenage years discovering his love for research, and Elvia recall the most heart wrenching experience of her career.
Soon, the notebook she brought to gather content fodder lay forgotten as the true meaning of our work sank in. From then on, every single piece of content she produced for DLG Research carried a glimmer of the feeling she had that afternoon on a hot Houston summer afternoon.
I had no idea until that day just how much DLG Research meant to me, and how much multicultural market research meant to the world around us.
“You should do a season two”
One memorable reaction to Moderating Life took us by surprise. It came from a potential client at a networking event.
While in passing conversation, he said he had listened to the entire series, beginning to end, every word. Then, that he enjoyed it so much he had a suggestion for season two: “what’s next” in market research.
That one comment reframed the whole concept for us. Our podcast was no longer just a look back at our lives, if it ever had been. It was proof that DLG Research had become a voice worth listening to; where insights, multicultural communications, and marketing to Hispanic consumers are heading.
Legacy among our loved ones
Last but not least, there were the reactions at home.
Edgardo played some of the podcast for his two teenaged sons. He immensely enjoyed watching their expressions shift from mild secondhand embarrassment, to bemused entertainment, to genuine interest. As Edgardo puts it, even if no one else ever listened to a word of Moderating Life, this alone made the venture “money well spent”. Perhaps in another 20 years they will return to these episodes, listen again, and see a snapshot of who he was as a younger man.
Elvia’s children listened and enjoyed, then moved on, or so she thought. Later, her daughter shared an ambition with her mother to become a psychologist and make a connection to people like Elvia does—at the human level. Nothing could be more meaningful that hearing your daughter say that she wants to be like you when she grows up.
What We Would Do Differently
Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back at the year we’ve had since Moderating Life was released, there are a few things we might change if we had them to do over again.
Recording all six episodes at once seemed like a good idea at the time, and maybe it is for many people. But it was also mentally and physically demanding. Spacing out the sessions might have made the conversation feel even more natural and given each topic more room to breathe. We might have had more capacity for unscripted moments, or additions to the lineup.
If we had done multiple sessions, we might have been able to include guests in the conversation. Many people who contributed to our favorite moments reside right here in Houston, Texas. Perhaps, if we do a season two, we will ask them to join us on the set to share their perspectives with ours.
Finally, we missed an opportunity to connect even more deeply with our audience when we released all six episodes at once. Had we launched one at a time, we could have let each chapter of the story land, invite discussion among our friends of the business, built more hype around the release of the subsequent episode, and kept the conversation active over time.
Live and learn, we say!
Why We're Launching a New Blog
Why wait another 20 years?
One of the biggest lessons we learned from this year is that we DLG Research does not need to wait for another milestone to do something extra special. We can share what we’re seeing, learning, and experiencing with you any time.
The response to Moderating Life showed us that people (including our clients) care about the thinking behind the work that goes into the deliverables. It matters how the research actually happens, what it feels like to be in the room with focus group participants, and how the conversations we have shape better business decisions at all levels.
DLG Research has something to offer.
On the Cusp of Culture
Across categories, industries, markets, cultures, and everything in between, we hear certain commonalities: how people talk about money, food, family, health, identity, and everyday life. But our perspective on them is unusual.
In multicultural and Hispanic marketing research especially, we sit “front row” to the stage of how culture and commerce intersect.
Patterns in human behavior we observe and the cultural shifts we witness are more valuable than any one project for any one client could dream of. In this new blog series, we will be the place some of those observations call home—translated into practical perspectives for brands, agencies, and companies who want to use market research to make better business decisions.
As we always say, “Insightful Research. Actionable Results.”
Exploring New Cultural Horizons
Never content to sit on the sidelines, we at DLG Research are excited about leading our industry forward. Things change quickly, and staying static is not an option for us.
Behind the One-Way Mirror is how DLG Research will keep the conversation going. We will keep talking, and listening, and engaging with the industry.
In upcoming editions of this blog, we will write about:
Global and cross-market projects, and what they reveal about similarities and differences across cultures
How AI can support research—making analysis faster and sharper—without replacing the human moderator or the nuance needed in marketing to Hispanic consumers
Multicultural and Hispanic consumer insights that influence real decisions but rarely make it into a topline slide
Field stories that quietly changed how a client briefed, positioned, or launched a product
Thank you for being here with us at the beginning of this journey.
Enjoy these highlight reels from each episode!
Moderating Life let us look back at the first 20 years of DLG Research. Behind the One-Way Mirror is how we’ll keep looking forward—at culture, at consumers, and at the business decisions they shape. If these stories resonate with you, we hope you’ll stay close, listen in, and keep the conversation going with us.