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CRMC 2025: Mastering the Balance in Retail Marketing

Kevin Clarke June 19, 2025
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CRMC 2025: Mastering the Balance in Retail Marketing

The Customer Relationship Management Conference (CRMC) is a leading annual event that brings together senior leaders in CRM, loyalty, and retail marketing to exchange ideas, discuss emerging trends, and build lasting industry connections. With a strong community of repeat attendees, CRMC offers a collaborative environment for practical learning and peer-driven insights.
At CRMC 2025, themed “Mastering the Balance,” the focus was on helping marketers deliver personalized experiences at scale while preserving the emotional loyalty that comes from human connection. The Munvo team had a strong presence throughout the event, attending key sessions, engaging in meaningful conversations with industry peers, and contributing insights during our co-presentations with SAS. Here are some of the standout takeaways from our experience at CRMC 2025:

AI-Driven Personalization Is the New Standard

One of the most consistent themes across CRMC 2025 was the rapid adoption of AI-powered personalization. Brands like PetSmart and Carter’s are moving away from traditional segmentation in favor of real-time, one-to-one engagement. Munvo has been at the forefront of this shift, helping clients adopt platforms like OfferFit and Optimove to unlock scalable personalization strategies that deliver measurable results. 

Redefining Loyalty Programs for a New Era

Retailers are actively moving beyond outdated points-based models and embracing lifecycle-centric loyalty strategies that deliver emotional and experiential value:
  • Carter’s launched milestone rewards and parenting-focused educational content.
  • Gap Inc. focused on brand storytelling and shared values to create a unified loyalty experience.
  • Hilton and Princess Cruises showcased how technology integrations—like digital keys and partner offers—enhance loyalty in travel and hospitality.
Munvo continues to support clients in reimagining loyalty strategies that go beyond transactional value.

Operationalizing Omnichannel Engagement

Many brands openly shared their struggle to align in-store and digital experiences. The conversation is shifting from platform selection to execution:

  • Sephora highlighted how journey orchestration across apps, websites, and stores drives consistency.
  • Subway shared the importance of aligning CDP, POS, and loyalty data to personalize at the point of interaction.

Munvo works closely with clients to close these execution gaps and bring omnichannel strategy to life using scalable architectures.

The Acceleration of Composable MarTech

A major trend this year was the rise of composable CDPs and modular marketing stacks. Digital-forward retailers are building flexible ecosystems by integrating best-of-breed solutions rather than relying on a single vendor. As a SAS Gold Partner, Munvo plays a critical role in designing composable MarTech frameworks that enable real-time activation and long-term scalability.

SAS + Munvo Highlights at CRMC

crmc takeaway blog image
A major highlight of the event was Munvo’s co-presentation with SAS and Ulta Beauty at the SAS Lounge, showcasing the power of strategic collaboration in action. Ulta Beauty’s session demonstrated how SAS CI360 empowers marketers to deliver real-time, hyper-personalized journeys across digital and physical channels, managing over 45 million loyalty members efficiently.

SAS + Ulta Beauty Mainstage Session

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Ulta Beauty’s Deb Poole emphasized CI360’s ability to handle extensive data without cumbersome data movement processes, providing marketers with low-code, intuitive, and effective campaign management capabilities. With a vast rewards program, hundreds of brands, and an extensive product catalog, CI360 ensures agility, accuracy, and self-sufficient marketing operations.

SAS Lounge Session: “It Shouldn’t Be That Difficult”

The SAS lounge session emphasized CI360’s role beyond a traditional CDP, serving as a robust customer engagement platform that integrates disparate data sources and facilitates real-time, cross-channel activation without disrupting existing MarTech stacks.

Munvo Lounge Session: Future-Proofing the CDP

Munvo’s session provided crucial insights for evaluating modern CDPs, outlining the industry’s shift towards composable, modular ecosystems, and highlighting CI360’s key capabilities: real-time data access, advanced decision-making, comprehensive orchestration, and enterprise scalability.

The combined sessions made a strong case for CI360 not just as a CDP alternative, but as a strategic enabler for enterprise engagement. As a trusted SAS Gold Partner, Munvo helps marketers future-proof their tech stacks, orchestrate journeys across channels, and operationalize personalization at scale.

Ready to elevate your marketing stack and customer engagement strategy?

Connect with Munvo today and discover how our team can help you turn customer data into meaningful, measurable outcomes.

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