Informa’s Front End of Innovation (FEI) wasn’t your typical innovation conference. It was fast, hands-on, and rooted in action—true to its theme, Harvesting Innovation: Sowing the Seeds of Future Growth. For over two decades, FEI has gathered innovation leaders to spark progress through real-world problem solving. From the need for speed and cross-functional collaboration to using social media as a behavioral lab, here’s what stood out and what we’re bringing back to the Orchard table.
That includes personas, business models, and fake websites to test product-market fit—fast. At Orchard, we’re inspired to think in sprints: small, focused teams tackling one bold idea at a time. The faster we learn, the smarter we grow.
From Lagunitas’ live taproom tests to Gallo’s exploration of “unclaimed emotional territory,” it’s clear that innovation must go beyond function. Make something people want, not just something they need.
Brands like PepsiCo and Visa show how they are using AI to prototype and test new concepts. If you’re not designing your innovation workflows with AI in mind, you’re already behind. But the magic still lies in human input—prompt design is everything.
Companies winning in innovation – like Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Hospital - are those who bring together product, data, R&D, marketing, and leadership from the start.
In our session with Sarah Snudden from JDE Peet’s, we showed how the brand avoided costly missteps by testing early concepts on platforms where consumers actually spend their time—and money. Closing the “say-do-gap" is possible by using social media as a real-word behavioral research lab.
Innovation isn’t a side project at Orchard; it’s how we operate.
We’re doubling down on experimentation, collaboration, and behavioral insights to shape the future of market research. Catch us next at Greenbook’s IIEX Europe Conference in Amsterdam, June 17-18, where we’ll be bringing our strategies for closing the “say-do-gap" to the EU. See you there.