CRC 2025 Apple Bites: The Orchard Team’s Major Takeaways

CRC 2025 gave us three full days of content, conversation, and challenge. The sessions underscored that insights today aren’t just about data collection, they’re about helping brands navigate an ever-changing landscape while acting with empathy and growing with purpose. 

We asked all of our team mates who attended CRC to summarize the most important thing each learned from the conference. In true Orchard fashion, we’ve distilled those thoughts into Apple Bites: small but powerful insights, lessons, and observations we’re taking away from CRC 2025. 

Joe Corace, Chief Customer Officer: “CMOs want us to help them see around corners.” 

The CMO POV panel hit on some of the biggest inflection points in business today:

• AI will soon be as ubiquitous as Excel. 
• Consumers are living in fractured economies and a “new normal” of post-pandemic multitasking. 
• The gig economy has only accelerated since COVID. 

But the real role of insights? Framing narratives that humanize data and create business value. 

• Principal Financial reminded us to “get out of your lane and keep asking why.” 
• Kenyata at Kimberly-Clark shared that multicultural consumers are growing faster than the general market — and that for them, sensory cues (like scent) are powerful signals of efficacy. 
• United Way proved the stakes: their 2-1-1 hotline flagged the infant formula shortage before it became a national crisis. 
  

🍏 Apple Bite: Insights teams must deliver more than data points. We must observe behaviors, connect dots, and give CMOs confidence to act boldly.

Rashed Chowdhury, CEO: “Better leadership starts with a Futurist’s outlook.”

Futurist speaker Cecily Sommers made a sobering point to the audience: “Strategy is an endangered species.” 

Her framework for leadership was simple but profound: 

• Governance. Demographics. Technology. Resources. 

And her four habits of the mind: 

• Optimism. Curiosity. Courage. Patience. 

Her challenge: Are we developing leaders equipped to handle mighty responsibility — and are we doing right by them?

🍏 Apple Bite: In an era of disruption, leaders must not only forecast, but they also need to foster optimism, curiosity, courage, and patience to guide teams through times of uncertainty.

Keeley McManus, Client Strategy & Insights Manger: “Inclusivity isn’t just about innovation — it’s about intentionality.”

Mattel’s session on inclusive toy design shared the emotional tools they used the development process to create serious breakthroughs: 

• Empathy interviews with parents. 

• Virtual gut checks with experts. 

• Kids testing prototypes. 

• Storytelling to win stakeholder buy-in. 

A few simple changes in their approach led Mattel to make minor design tweaks that made a major difference in the creation of remote-control car that was inclusive to all kids.

🍏 Apple Bite: Inclusion doesn’t always require starting from scratch. Sometimes it’s the smallest pivots backed by conviction which end up making the biggest difference. 

Jordan Hussian, Client Strategy & Insights Manger: “Listen. Test. Act. Repeat.”

Several winning brands demonstrated how to translate listening into measurable action: 

• Grainger rebuilt its messaging pillars by testing 18 RTBs, narrowing to five — and proving that partnerships (not vendor roles) are the path to relevance. 
• L’Oréal used AI-powered visual decoding to analyze hundreds of consumer-uploaded images and map scent cues. Their mantra: speed + emotional depth + strategic dimensionality. 
• Flowers Foods used TURF analysis to optimize protein bar flavors, balancing reach and substitution.

🍏 Apple Bite: Deep listening is only powerful when paired with thoughtful, agile testing and confident, decisive action to back it up in-market. 

Bryson Cwick, Business Development Manager: “Purpose is the pivot foot of growth.” 

A recurring CRC theme: A purpose-driven mindset is no longer optional. 

• Purpose must be focused by belief (think), defined by action (do), and adopted through communication (say). 

• Colgate embodied this with “Your smile is your strength.” Authentic, universal, and set to launch globally in December 2025. 

🍏 Apple Bite: Purpose is your pivot foot. It’s the anchoring mission that allows every brand move to have balance, force, and direction. 

Maryanne Polinovsky, Senior Client Strategist: “Disruption is the new normal.”

Global disruption was a major theme for multiple macro sessions, with a clear pattern noted in the AI timeline: 

• 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year. 

• 2024: The Global Elections SuperCycle (70 countries, 3.5B voters). 

• 2025: Permanent disruption — multipolar geopolitics, declining globalism, investments moving to emerging markets. 

Signals of change included nuclear fusion, AI-driven hydroponics, and a shift from global scarcity to local abundance. 

🍏 Apple Bite: The new normal isn’t stability, it’s disruption. Brands need to be up to riding the waves by helping consumers navigate their anxieties around food, energy, and climate with clarity and courage. 

 Taiwo Abioye, Associate Client Strategist: “Empathy is strategy.”

Even major market leaders need reminding: McDonald’s started to see losses among lower-income households despite strong comps. Their key lesson: empathy in insights must be real, evocative, and sometimes a little awkward. 

🍏 Apple Bite: Insights without empathy are empty. Our job is to surface not just what everybody’s thinking, but what needs to be said. 

In a nutshell: 

Insights leaders are no longer just researchers. We’re translators of behavior, challengers of assumptions, and navigators of disruption. 

At Orchard, we’ll continue to turn big conference ideas into everyday “Apple Bites”: satisfying, actionable insights that help brands grow with empathy, inclusivity, and purpose. 

Better insights start with deeper questions - so ask away.