Toluna Replaces ITWP as Group's Principal Brand

The holding company of Toluna, Harris Interactive Europe and KuRunData is adopting the Toluna name as its principal brand, replacing ITWP which will be phased out. Toluna is celebrating this change and its twenty years in business with a new corporate identity.

The group, which employs 1,500 people in 24 offices across six continents, says the new brand 'builds on its 20 years of innovation and reflects its continued vision to democratize market research'. Its offer combines Toluna's automated solutions and panel community of 30 million members with Harris' well-established methodology and research experience, and KuRunData's expertise in China and APAC.

ITWP was formed just under a decade ago when Toluna was taken private by what had previously been its third-largest shareholder, family-owned Belgian company Verlinvest, in a deal valuing the company at £161m (or $259m at then-prevailing exchange rates). Toluna, itself incorporated in the UK in the year 2000, had recently succeeded in assimilating the survey division of panels pioneer Greenfield Online. In summer 2014 ITWP acquired Harris Interactive's European arm from Nielsen, with the latter taking a minority share in ITWP. Shanghai-based KuRunData was added to the group in January 2018.

Toluna itself has focused in recent years on integrating its services, continually upgrading and extending its flagship QuickSurveys platform and launching a new 'category', Insights on Demand with the aim of 'reshaping market research'.

The group is privately held by investors including Toluna CEO Frédéric-Charles Petit, who comments: 'Since our inception, Toluna has been committed to changing the market research industry and working with each of our clients to turn human interactions into insights that will drive their businesses forward... As we move into the future, Toluna will continue to offer our clients the most agile and innovative services that empower them to select the customized technology-driven resources and global community they need to power their critical business projects'. Michele Morelli, SVP of Global Marketing Strategy, says Toluna 'has always been recognized as a disrupter in the market research industry', and that the new brand 'furthers that legacy and identifies us as modern and innovative while decidedly human. We leaned heavily into this idea of reducing complexity - not only in our brand design but in our brand structure. This provides greater clarity to our customers and best reflects how we can quickly get our clients to the solutions they need'.

Web site: www.tolunacorporate.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.