A degree in Anthropology and Cultural Studies has led to a fascinating career for former Head Girl Layla Sanjoori, who now specialises in using the little-known science of Semiotics to help brands respond to cultural change.
Layla is a Cultural Strategist and Semiotician for Space Doctors, a specialist branding firm whose portfolio boasts a range of well-known names like Ferrero Rocher, Diageo, Microsoft and PepsiCo. Although Semiotics is officially defined as the ‘study of signs and symbols, what they mean and how they are used’, in marketing terms it can more simply be explained as the study of cultural changes to ensure clients can keep their brands meaningful and relevant to consumers’ lives.
Explained Layla: “When our clients are looking to launch or re-brand a product, they rely on us to use semiotics to identify the things that are important to consumers but which they can’t necessarily articulate. This could be a cultural shift in attitudes or identifying emerging themes which will be important to tomorrow’s consumers.”
One of their most successful projects to date has been for the toy brand Mattel, helping the re-position ‘Barbie’ as a champion of female empowerment for young girls. Explained Layla: “Space Doctors combined cultural insight with semiotic analysis to reveal how Barbie could transform from a traditional beauty icon into a powerful vehicle for challenging gender bias and expanding girls’ sense of possibility.” The cultural transformation the company helped initiate ultimately resulted in the 2023 hit movie ‘Barbie’, which took messages of female empowerment to a global audience.
More recently, Layla has been using semiotics to help Legoland understand the future of girlhood and play so they can better tailor the experience girls enjoy at the attraction: “We start by immersing ourselves in the product; in Legoland’s case we went to the theme park, looked at all the experiences on offer and studied how girlhood was being communicated through different characters and attractions. Once we’ve collected all that information, we analyse it all and focus on how culture is evolving and what the client can do to ensure they remain attractive and relevant to girls.”
Across the Atlantic, one of Layla’s proudest achievements is the difference she and the team have made to an American men’s grooming brand who asked for help to navigate changing attitudes towards masculinity. “After in-depth cultural analysis, we advocated for softer, more reflective branding to appeal to today’s consumer, who has moved away from the traditional male gender stereotypes of the past.”
With a portfolio of blue-chip clients ranging from Heineken to Ferrero Rocher, Layla has plenty of variety in her working day and is thrilled to be putting her degree to such good use: “Semiotics is rooted in academic theory, but applying it commercially is fascinating. I had no idea this job even existed when I graduated but Semiotics is a growing discipline in the marketing and branding world, so anyone studying Anthropology or related subjects should definitely consider it as a career.”
