DJG Brand Studio helps brands decode culture, understand consumer behaviors, anticipate change, and craft meaningful strategies.
WHAT I DO
How I help brands shape meaning, purpose and cultural relevance.
Foresight & Trends
Detect weak signals shaping markets and subcultures.
Craft prospective scenarios to guide brand’s innovation and positioning.
DELIVERABLES
Illustrated trends reports
Scenario building
Strategic benchmark
RECENT WORK IN COLLABORATION WITH PINK BRAIN
Luxury: scenarios 2030 for Middle East, India, China
Sport: entering a new era
Banking & Gen Z: what to expect
Cultural insights & Semiotics
Decode the symbols, values, and beliefs driving categories and audiences.
Reveal the cultural codes behind consumer behavior that give brands meaning and cultural relevance.
DELIVERABLES
Cultural decoding territories
Brand cultural roadmaps
Brand semiotics analysis
RECENT WORK
How the comedy landscape is evolving in Switzerland and France.
Client: a major video streaming playerWhat “cultivated for good” means for French consumers.
Client: a leading frozen food player in the USA
Brand Strategy
Turn cultural understanding into actionable brand platforms and positionings that evolve with their audiences.
DELIVERABLES
Brand positionings
Brand platforms
Brand equity reports
RECENT WORK
Brand positioning scenarios for a food leader in Switzerland
Brand platform for a super-premium liquor brand in Africa
Qualitative Research
Listen deeply. Translate lived experiences into strategic insight through IDIs, focus groups, and online communities.
DELIVERABLES
Focus groups, online communities, IDIs
Qualitative reports
RECENT WORK
Run a series of focus groups to gain insights into beauty consumption in France on e-marketplaces.
Client: International cosmetic groupConduct a series of IDIs to understand U&A of French content creators.
Client: top-tier international software company
ABOUT
I’m Dora Jurd de Girancourt, brand strategist and semiotician specialized in understanding consumer behavior across cultures and markets.
For over twenty years and across five countries (USA, France, South Africa, Morocco, and the UAE), I’ve helped international brands – from luxury and food to tech and entertainment- decode emerging cultural signals and translate them into meaningful brand strategies.
My background bridges academia and strategic consulting. I’ve taught brand strategy in business schools, conducted research on female leadership, and published several books on family businesses.
In 2022, I founded DJG Brand Studio – an independent consultancy combining semiotic analysis, foresight, and strategy to help brands build culturally grounded and future-ready marketing strategies.
My approach blends:
global perspective
cultural empathy
sharp strategic thinking
Since 2024, DJG Brand Studio and Pink Brain have partnered on numerous cultural insights, brand strategy and foresight projects.
PUBLICATIONS & ARTICLES
Reflections on brand strategy, family businesses and female leadership.
BOOKS
Femmes au cœur des entreprises familiales, 2021.
Based on 30 face-to-face interviews with Moroccan female family members and a thorough literature review, this book unveils the place of women in Moroccan family businesses: their challenges, their success drivers, their types of leadership.
Le Chemin des possibles, 2021.
Biography of Saloua Karkri Belkeziz, first female tech entrepreneur and former Member of Parliament in Morocco. Biography based on interviews with Mme Karkri Belkeziz.
Embracing paradoxes in South African family businesses, 2017.
Analysis of the specifics of South African family businesses in terms of communication, marketing and management.
Leur Nom est une Marque, 2002.
How to manage a brand that bears a family name? Analysis and live testimonies of several famous French family businesses.
CHAPTERS
Women in entrepreneurship in the Arab world, in the book « Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship in the MENA region », Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
Melvill & Moon : développer une marque en se basant sur l'identité familiale, business case in the book « Les entreprises familiales en Afrique », HEM Business School, La Croisée des Chemins, 2020, Morocco.
ARTICLES
2023 - Making Sense with Dora Jurd de Girancourt - SEMIOVOX
2023 - L’apport de la sémiologie à la stratégie de marque et à l’innovation - CULTURE RP
2019 - Quels nouveaux codes de la masculinité sur le continent africain ? - SEMIOSINE
2016 - Groupe Bel, à la conquête de nouveaux marchés en Afrique - La revue des MARQUES
