A diversely talented local company is rising to the challenge of the changing marketplace with an abundance of hard work and creativity

As the Hispanic population increases across the country, most companies are realizing that an effective bilingual marketing campaign is not a luxury but a necessity.  This new territory can be frightening for the majority of them who have no knowledge of Hispanic culture or preferences.  In steps Enye Media, a full service, Hispanic owned advertising and public relations agency.  By excelling at creating effective advertising campaigns and taking them from concept to the finished product, Enye makes it easy for companies to reach the Hispanic market and do so effectively.  It’s a dynamic and motivated group, that draw on a wealth talent to offer a staggering list of services, inspired for the most part by the needs of their clients.   The name Enye is an acronym that stands for Eclectic Network of Young Entrepreneurs and also draws upon the phonetic spelling of Spanish character ñ which signifies that Enye knows a thing or two about the Hispanic market.

Creative Forces
Robert Ruiz is the principal force behind the original idea for Enye Group (9 years) and Enye Music (6 years). He also has interests in FrontRow Technologies, a company that sells and distributes tickets for different types of events. FrontRowFans.com is a ticket donation program, for non-profit organizations. Ruiz is a computer software engineer and business consultant with more than 10 years of experience. As a software developer, Robert has done work for companies such as Southwest Research Institute, Alcatel, IBM, Ford Motor Company and Mazda USA. He actively participates in different community organizations, including the Human Rights Commission.  He’s originally from San Antonio, Texas, and attended the University of Oklahoma as a National Merit Scholar.

“Within the Enye family we get totally involved in each and every project, giving individual attention to our clients. Each project presents its own challenges, which is precisely what separates us from our competitors,” says Robert. “Our only mission, from the moment we commit to working with each client, is to develop a product that is different from any advertising campaign offered by others.  Our creative team is proud to create original themes, innovating ideas, everything custom-made,” Robert points out.

“Imagination is our limit, each client is like a blank canvas, where his or her product will become a masterpiece”, adds partner Ricardo Sasaki; who has 17 years experience in advertising on an international level. Ricardo Sasaki co-founded Enye Media in 2006 along with Robert Ruiz, and joined the Enye Music family in 2008 with a goal of supporting and unifying production and promotion for the company. He also co-owns ProAudio S.R.L. in Bolivia, South America, where he excelled as an audio engineer and creative specialist for clients such as Price Waterhouse Cooper, Samsung, Coca-Cola and many more. He was born in San Francisco, California, lived the majority of his life in Bolivia, until he settled in Oklahoma. He has been a recipient of several honorary awards, including three gold and one platinum records. He’s an established artist with his Bolivian rock band Octavia, working under Sony Music International. Ricardo was educated at the Conservatory of Music and Audio Engineering in San Francisco, California.

“The best thing about my job is that I’m doing something creative, but I have also accomplished something few people accomplish. I really enjoy my job, I have been an artist since birth,” says Ricardo. “I like the simple things in life, but what really encourages me is the challenge to be creative, every single day,” adds Ricardo. In fact, to be able to manage his creativity even better, Ricardo joined forces with Robert to create their own recording facility, Ares Studio. When it began, they produced four demos and two full projects in only one month. To solidify its commercial worth, Enye Media also joined forces with Saxum Communications, a public relations agency that also offers advertising, graphic design, event planning, administrative services and educational conferences.

Partners for life
While Robert was attending college at OU he met a charming girl named Wilmari, who a short time later became his wife, and serves as Director of Operations for ENYE.  Wilmari began her civil engineering studies at the University of Oklahoma on three consecutive scholarships. Two of the scholarships were academic merit based.  According to Wilmari, during the last school year a tornado destroyed her parents’ home. Since she did not have a place to call home and she and Robert were already engaged to be married, they decided to speed up the process. They returned to Texas, where Robert was working for a company called Alcatel USA in Plano, Texas, and then for IBM in Houston. “It was then we decided to start a family.  The experience that Robert acquired at IBM inspired him to visualize the future creation of his own company.  From there, Enye Group was born,” says Wilmari. She adds that her first maternal experience was riddled with complications. She lived in Houston at the time, and decided to go live with her in-laws. Robert later joined them. “From there, we decided to return to Oklahoma that summer,” Wilmari points out.

As Director of Operations for Enye Music, Wilmari not only provides administrative, accounting and management experience, but artistic skills as well; she plays the flute, serves as a program coordinator and performs with several different groups. “I’m currently a senior at the University of Phoenix, studying Marketing, and I will be finished by May 2009. I’m busy taking care of our four beautiful children; 3 girls and one boy (Maritza is 8, Sonia is 6, John is 5 and Yasmín is only 3),” says Wilmari proudly. Robert says that she has been the strongest and most important link in the Enye family. She’s a very creative individual, a visionary, demanding and particularly detail-oriented.

Winning Roots
Enye tradition started in 1999, when Robert Ruiz had an idea of creating a company that would offer professional services of individuals with varied artistic talents. Ruiz says that the idea came from an article he read in a widely circulated news magazine, referring to the, at that time, young Hispanics in the U.S. as the Generation ‘Ñ’. The article mainly spoke about the arts, music, business, and the Hispanic culture in general. Robert’s first grand adventure was a business consulting and computer software development company, Enye Group. When this adventure became a success, he was able to finance a musical group called Mariachi Orgullo de América. He had been involved with music since he was 12 and dreamed about coming back to his musical roots, which is what he felt he needed to do. Not long after, he followed his entrepreneur background and developed Enye Music. He then later formed another musical group called Son del Barrio; bringing the tropical music sound to Oklahoma, something that many welcomed with great pride. A Colombian group called Tierradentro, featuring traditional vallenato music from Colombia, later joined his company as well. Enye Music today has 8 bands and almost 50 musicians.

Enye has been responsible for production and promotion of events such as the Norman Hispanic Festival, the Mariachi Festival of Oklahoma City, and recently, the Norman Music Festival. They have the privilege and responsibility of handling concert production at the Zoo Amphitheater. They also sponsor the Fiestas de las Américas festival in Oklahoma City.  Enye has plans in the near future to create more projects and more events for its musical groups, to be able to share the culture and music for the public demanding to see talent of their caliber.  They also plan to expand their agency services to more out of state clients as the demand increases for Hispanic media services across the country.

Enye Media Downtown Norman Studio, 301 1/2 East Main Street, 405-579-3693, www.enye.com.