Who We Are
We have offices in Boston and New York, and we work with semioticians, consumer researchers, and culture experts around the world.
Josh Glenn
Co-Founder, Senior Analyst
Josh has worked in commercial semiotics for over 20 years, generating crucial insights for marketers, strategists and planners. His background is in journalism. In the 2000s, Josh was an editor and columnist at The Boston Globe. In the ’90s, he published the zine/journal Hermenaut. He is publisher of the p(HiLo)sophical website HILOBROW.
He was described, in a New York Times profile, as a semiotician and writer who has spent decades thinking about “how a product or idea means. Not what but how.” He is co-author and editor of Taking Things Seriously and The Idler’s Glossary, among other books. He co-created the bestselling family activities guide UNBORED, as well as a line of UNBORED activity kits.
He and Rob Walker developed the object-oriented storytelling experiment Significant Objects; and they co-edit the Project:Object series exploring what (and how) inanimate objects mean.
Ron Rentel
Co-Founder
Ron is a veteran of the brand and innovation world with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and consumer insights.
He founded Consumer Eyes, a leading global brand and innovation agency, in 1991. In 2000 he co-founded BuzzBack, an online market research company. He is a frequent guest lecturer at SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design)
Ron is on the Board of Directors for LINC (Literacy, Inc.), which works to inspire and enlist communities to create a better future for children through literacy.
Global Network
Semiovox collaborates with semioticians and cultural experts in the US and internationally.
In the US, our extensive network includes journalists, culture critics, and semioticians specializing in everything from fashion to TV to food. Internationally, we work with semiotic analysts hailing from the Americas (including Brazil, Canada, Mexico), Europe (including the UK, Sweden, Germany, Russia, France, Spain, Belgium); Asia (including China, India, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Korea); and Australia.
Through our sister agency, Consumer Eyes, we also have access to a network of consumer researchers and local culture experts around the world.