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[Bangalore, India, 23 September 2021]: At the ESOMAR Research Effectiveness Awards 2021 last week, Borderless Access and Unilever were honoured with the GOLD award for their collaborative case study based paper, ‘The evolution of brand humanization’ using digital bot-enabled research methodology.

Every year, this prestigious Research Effectiveness Award recognizes the market or social research studies that have contributed significantly to commercial success and society.

Sharing her thoughts on this win, Stacey Grant, Africa CMI Director, Unilever said, “The insights generated by Borderless Access made me strongly reconsider what true purpose and sustainability means for our mainstream citizens in Africa. There is no shortage of opportunities to make a difference in Africa, but there is a shortage of resources to do so. Research like this helps us to identify genuine pain points for the people we serve and build empathy for what will make a real difference in their lives. This understanding is critical in helping us make investment choices.’’

Along with the Gold Award, Borderless Access and Unilever also won prize money of 3000 Euros which both companies have decided to donate it to LIV – An organization devoted to supporting orphans & vulnerable children in South Africa!

Dushyant Gupta, EVP – Borderless Access, extended his wishes saying, “We are proud of our association with Unilever and to effectuate change at such a large scale. The solutions, such as, bot-enabled research, under our research vertical ‘BA Insightz’ are purposed to assist brands with natural consumer interactions that help in insight-driven decision making. We hope to continue supporting brands globally with real human insights to enrich people’s lives”.

About Borderless Access:

Since Covid-19, there has been a dramatic shift in consumers' mindsets globally towards healthier lifestyle habits. Global digital market research company, Borderless Access, set out to find out what South Africans changed about their lifestyles and how food and beverage companies can help support consumers.

Renewed focus on health and fitness

Many South Africans used the weeks of lockdown as an opportunity to reset their health and fitness routines.

Of the 300 South Africans surveyed, 74% said they now consider health and fitness to be very important with eating healthily and exercising being placed at the top of their list of healthy habits. This was followed by eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking more water and more home-cooked food.  

“Covid-19 and the lockdowns over the last year definitely inspired South Africans to focus on being healthy and fit,” says Bev Tigar Bassett, AVP - Business Development at Borderless Access. “The most common changes we found people made during the pandemic was introducing home workouts into their routines and eating more healthily.”

Globally, lockdowns limiting people’s movements, coupled with a genuine fear of contracting COVID-19, have delivered a brutal blow to the hospitality industry. In Sub-Saharan Africa the lockdown rules in some countries have spanned from bans on the sale of alcohol in addition to strict curfews, intensifying the financial predicament for restaurants in particular. 

Borderless Access has done extensive research into the meal-buying habits of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically South Africa and Nigeria. Here we examine data on people’s buying habits, whether short-term or permanent, with regard to visiting restaurants, ordering takeaways, opting for drive-through choices, ordering meal kits to be cooked at home, buying ready-made meals from grocery stores, or choosing to only cook at home.

As Covid-19 has turned the world on its head, few industries have been as shaken up as that of restaurants and hospitality. Worldwide, restaurants and eating establishments have taken a beating as lockdown has resulted in closures, changes and restrictions to what used to be a burgeoning industry.

Borderless Access conducted research to understand eating out and ordering-in habits and how these have been shaped – both temporarily and permanently – by the ongoing global pandemic. Unsurprisingly, ordering in has been by far the most utilized activity in recent times… ordering food for delivery, ordering take-aways from a restaurant and ordering/ collecting food from a fast-food chain have been the top activities globally in the past 3 months, and both of these have been particularly well-utilized in both the UAE and Saudi.

How bot-enabled research can help businesses & brands develop a deeper understanding of personal/household hygiene habits in order to meet the needs of African consumers, and increase their business impact.

Many years ago, in the days of one-way communication, brands dictated their terms to consumers, and consumers had no option but to accept them if they wanted to purchase the brand in question.

With the rise of smartphones, social media and the internet of absolutely everything, the communication channels began to sway, shifting the locus of communication control. Two-way communication between brand and consumer was born, with brands starting to listen to their consumers and hear what they had to say. Taking this a step further, brands are now starting to take on human characteristics, from look-and-feel to tone and personalisation to establish deeper connections with their consumers.

[Bengaluru, India, 16 August 2021] Borderless Access, the digital market research product and solutions company, announced a new appointment with Vittesh Kalambi as Vice President - Panel Solutions.

Vittesh Kalambi joins Borderless Access with over 18 years of experience in Research & Analytics and will now lead the Panel Solutions business across geographies with a strong focus on maintaining double-digit growth and momentum. He will also help enhance existing solutions and introduce new tech-enabled research products and capabilities.

In his previous roles, he has contributed greatly towards the development and execution of complex cross-functional projects in Global Category Management, Business Transformation and Team Management. At Genpact India, he co-led the MR Services for the Analytics CoE. He also led the Marketing Analytics practice at Absolutdata and was the Head of Analytics at GSK Consumer Healthcare, India.

“The appointment of Vittesh is an extension of our pursuit to constantly grow our capacity and capability in key industry verticals, expand our regional reach as well as further empower our research and analytics capabilities”, said Ruchika Gupta, CEO, Borderless Access. “We are thrilled to have him join Borderless Access. His business acumen and wealth of experience will be an asset to the company while expediting our journey towards our vision.’’

About Borderless Access:

Borderless Access is an award-winning digital market research product and solutions company. It provides access to experiences and life moments of engaged consumers and niche audiences to a global clientele of MR firms, Ad Agencies, Consultancy firms, and End Enterprises in need of rich, intelligent, and actionable quant-qual insights through technology and consumer-analytics-driven new-age research solutions, BA Health, BA Insightz, HealthSight, SmartSight, Panel Solutions, and our proprietary 7 million+ hyper-niche digital panels across 39 growing and developed economies of the world.

2019 has been a special one for everyone at Borderless Access for a couple of reasons. The first reason: This is our 11^th year, having celebrated our 10^th anniversary in October 2018. The second reason: We moved into a new office space in April 2019. The latter gave us freedom for the first time in 10 years to make certain environmentally-friendly decisions like never before.