Sergio Alcocer of LatinWorks at Cannes: We have to create our own heroes – we always import them from the countries we came from

Among the guest speakers at the 2013 Cannes Lions Festival was Sergio Alcocer, president and CCO of the Hispanic agency LatinWorks, who gave a talk on Saturday, June 22 entitled Being the Weakest: Building an Identity through Creativity.The session focused on how markets that are always in the shadow of giants must use their creativity to create their own image.Joining him at the conference were Aritz Bermudez, founder of Creative Farm in Guatemala; Eriks Stendzenieks, founder and CCO of IMOOZ of Latvia; and Hungary’s Marton Jedlicska, creative director at Kirowski Isobar.Latvia, Hungary, Guatemala and the multicultural U.S. market are all examples of how creativity can shape the perceptions of a nation.Alcocer, a Mexican based in the United States, outlined the situation of the Hispanic community and how, despite being numerous and growing rapidly, it does not yet have an identity that represents it.“We can help the president win an election but we’re not the face of change. We have to start believing in ourselves,” Alcocer said.“We come from different countries, each with its own culture, and the only thing that unites us is the language. And the generations born in the U.S. prefer to speak English,” he said, adding that “we have to create our own heroes – we always import them from the countries we came from.”Alcocer also served this year as a member of the jury in the Film Lions category.