It’s normal for the final decision in a launch, relaunch or innovation programme to come down to a handful of key individuals and making that decision requires alignment and shared conviction. KSBR Live’s HotHouse brings your target audience right into the heart of the decision-making process and creates a ‘moment’ when the key decision makers are in the same place at the same time, armed with the same understanding, having worked with real customers ‘Live’.

Put simply, small teams of clients (and their creative agencies) each bring ‘their’ idea to a series of tables or rooms where equally small teams of customers (each representing one opportunity segment) are waiting.

Basic non-directive interviewing training is provided and a KSBR facilitator hosts each table, while the stakeholders pitch their idea directly to the customer. Ideas are debated, both customers and stakeholders ‘score’ the response and conclusions are agreed.

Once all the client teams have visited all the customer teams (and we’ve achieved 16x intensive client-led mini focus groups over the course of just a few hours!),  it’s time for wash-ups where decisions are taken. Customer teams wash up with a KSBR moderator while the client teams discuss what they’ve found and begin to discuss the opportunities and challenges they’ve encountered. A KSBR moderator then facilitates a stakeholder wash-up consisting of:

– Reflecting on customer reaction

– Developing a shared understanding

– Agreeing direction

The whole exercise occupies an afternoon and evening, is often held at your offices and (we’ve been told!) is looked back on as a big event in the stakeholder’s calendar.

Like all research, the outputs are only useful if the inputs are excellent. The principles we work to are: