Dr Jennifer Simon

Dr Jennifer Simon

Associate Director, Cultural Strategy (Signs, London)

Having lived and worked in the UK, USA and the Caribbean, Jennifer is constantly curious about society’s hidden cultural codes and their impact on our everyday life. Guided by her PhD in sociology, her journey began with examining the meanings of citizenship and emotional identity in Jamaica’s education system. This passion for both semiotics and qualitative research evolved into a quest to use these techniques to solve brand challenges, too; with her working as a commercial semiotician and brand strategist on briefs spanning finance, tech and FMCG, across both emerging and developed markets. Her background also includes international development and academia, working for the likes of The Carter Center and several US universities. Outside of work, she plays The Sims, does genealogy research, writes children’s travel books and listens to jazz hip hop – preferably while on a beach.

  • Narrated Galleries

    We love films, but narrated galleries – fusing showreels of still images and audio of participant commentary – creates outputs that allow for high levels of reflection and audience empathy. Ideal for user experience work, in other words

  • Crowd Communities

    We’ve a wealth of experience at setting up and managing communities for clients, with learnings on how best to engage audiences and a full box of tricks for maximising what we get out of the work – including geo tagging, streaming in social media data and a mobile optimised platform

  • Pinterest

    We’ve used Pinterest to really good effect on a number of projects recently, helping us to explore differences and commonalities among different typologies in areas such as fashion and style, home, holidays and entertainment. Engagement levels with participants always rank high, and clients love the vividness and clarity of the findings.

  • Citizen Journalism

    Citizen journalism works on the principle of making reporters of our participants, briefing them to capture what’s happening in the lives of their friends and family via video dispatches and blogging. It gets us places where we can’t otherwise get. It bypasses the bias of having a researcher in attendance. People are often more accurate reporters on those around them than on themselves, so that’s another bias circumnavigated.

  • Network Audits

    If you want to really understand how people interact with those around them, it’s logical to research interconnected groups of friends, family and work colleagues. First developed as part of our award winning word of mouth research for Guardian News & Media, and since then refined and reconfigured across a range of global projects, our network audit approach helps us understand who’s influencing who as authentically as possible.